Matthew X. Oster

Oster leads the litigation and dispute resolution department at Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin. He is also head of the employment law practice, where he focuses on litigation and counseling, class actions as well as wrongful termination and discrimination matters.

The coronavirus pandemic brought an onslaught of new work. "It's like a brave new world," he said. "Everybody is feeling the effects. While everyone was frozen stiff, I was busier. Clients needed to know how to do layoffs, how to keep their employees safe. The FFCRA [Families First Coronavirus Response Act] gave leave time, and clients had to navigate that. There were questions about the Paycheck Protection Program. And we were also busy shutting down litigation when the courts were closing."

That was the first wave of the new reality. "Then we ran out of stuff we needed to do and things got slower. Now it's picking up again," he said in late June. "I've been going into the office three days a week throughout. A number of our attorneys actually became more productive at home, partly because they didn't have to commute. So what does that say about the office environment? At present, we're saying people should stay at home if they wish, and 60 percent to 70 percent aren't coming in. So we are reconfiguring our office space."

To keep people safe at work it's best to have them behind a door, Oster added. "We don't want to continue with the old corral style open office plan. So far we have enough vacant enclosed office space to accommodate those of us who are coming in." But he foresees having to have some new structures built, including a way to keep receptionists from dangerous public contact. "I've seen one design that looks like a ticket booth at a movie theater."

Oster's clients are mostly employers. But in one unusual case last year he led a team that represented 10 highly-compensated employees in an atypical misclassification arbitration that ended in awards of nearly $20 million. The details are confidential, but Oster said it was the kind of case that could happen only under California's worker-friendly employment laws.

"In the rest of the U.S., you wouldn't see this," he said. "Under federal law there is a highly-compensated employee exemption, but this state has no such rule, because it is so much more protective of employees. You are entitled to meal and rest breaks even if you make several hundred thousand dollars a year, and in the wage and hour context federal laws expressly do not take precedence over state law."

-- John Roemer