Aaron L. Agenbroad

Agenbroad is the partner in charge of Jones Day's 75-lawyer San Francisco office. He's been heading into the shop during much of June so that he can use two screens during a lengthy arbitration featuring participants in New Jersey, Hawaii, Dallas, Minneapolis and elsewhere.

With the office mostly closed due to the pandemic, "I've been amazed at how productive our people have been working remotely," he said.

Agenbroad focuses on employment litigation and traditional labor matters. The sudden emergence of the coronavirus in March threw a curve into his work as chief negotiator for client Stanford ValleyCare Medical Center in collective bargaining sessions with the California Nurses Association over an initial contract. "One week you were hearing about [the virus]. The next week everybody's home. It was such a rapid deceleration. We really slammed on the brakes." Still, the process moved forward. Agenbroad said he partnered with senior executives and nursing leadership to draft bargaining proposals and a negotiation strategy that would work for his client both economically and operationally.

"We moved to a Webex platform in March and concluded the sessions in April. This was the first time in 20 years that I've done virtual bargaining," he said.

In that negotiation and in Agenbroad's similar role as principal outside counsel for Sacramento-based The McClatchy Co. and its subsidiary newspapers in its dealing with its unions, the presence of Covid-19 became a topic of concern. "The discussions in both instances changed somewhat to include safety measures and the use of PPE," he said. "In hospitals that was obvious, and with newspapers you had issues with reporters working in the field."

Agenbroad has represented McClatchy for a decade, dealing with plant closings, the consolidation of operations and the implementation of new production and newsroom structures.

Elsewhere, Agenbroad represented The Neiman Marcus Group and in 2019 resolved a series of class actions over alleged wage and hour violations, including unpaid time and uncompensated rest breaks. Attia v. The Neiman Marcus Group, 8:16-cv-00504 (C.D. Cal., filed March 17, 2016).

Those cases took a twist when amid the litigation, a state appellate panel in Vaquero v. Stoneledge Furniture LLC ruled that commissioned sales employees--like the ones suing Neiman Marcus--must be compensated separately for rest breaks. "That changed the leverage the class had, and they became much more bullish about their case," Agenbroad said. Even so, he managed to resolve the matter for his client in a $4.4 million settlement. "We viewed that as a favorable and successful outcome," he said.

The key in both labor negotiations and in litigation is flexibility, Agenbroad said. "You have to be able to pivot on the fly toward your client's business interests and be ready to chart a new course."

-- John Roemer