Tao Y. Leung

Leung started his career as a general business commercial litigator. But when his wife started practicing employment law, he wanted in.

“Her cases always seemed more interesting than mine,” Leung said.” So, at my previous firm, that’s really when I started in employment, and then I basically never looked back since.”

It appears to have been a successful move. Today, Leung heads Hogan Lovells’ labor and employment practice in California. He handles all aspects of California and federal employment law. He regularly speaks on panels on topics such as the impact of the pandemic on employment law and the ramifications of controversial bills, such as California Assembly Bill 5 and Proposition 22.

Leung successfully represented AEG, AEG Presents and Goldenvoice in a wage and hour class action lawsuit involving 11,000 class members. The companies promote large music events, such as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Leung and his team had to tackle a novel theory presented by the plaintiffs. The class members alleged people who work eight-hour shifts are entitled to overtime pay if the shifts span workdays, such as from 9 pm to 6 am. According to Leung, the plaintiffs’ argument could have changed how a workday is defined if they prevailed. Jonathan Fiebelkorn v. New C.A.P.S., LLC. BC717337 (Los Angeles Super. Ct. filed Aug. 17, 2018).

The plaintiffs sought over $40 million in damages which Leung settled for $1.7 million.

“On issues that haven’t been decided, then it’s really figuring out what the best arguments for both sides would be and how you will best position your client to prevail on that,” Leung said. “For us, it was if the legislature intended for the workday to be defined as how the plaintiffs were trying to do it, then they could have done it that way. But there is a reason why they didn’t.”

Leung also served as lead employment counsel on several merger and acquisition deals. He advised Arm Limited on the $40 billion sale of Arm by SoftBank to NVIDIA. It was one of the largest merger and acquisition transactions within the semiconductor space. He also advised Marvell Technology in its $10 billion merger with Inphi Corp.

Leung explained that his role is to figure out what employment-related issues are present in the company his client intends to acquire.

“Because the last thing anyone wants to do is they buy a company, and it turns out it’s some toxic work environment with all sorts of issues that can cause not only financial harm but also reputational harm,” Leung said.

— Henrik Nilsson