Rebecca B. Peterson-Fisher

Rebecca B. Peterson-Fisher

MENLO PARK - Rebecca B. Peterson-Fisher focuses on employment discrimination, wage and hour violations, whistleblower claims and class actions as a name partner at Liu Peterson- Fisher LLP. She has worked at the plaintiff-side employment boutique since 2017 and was added to the firm’s title in early 2022 by the founder, Jennifer L. Liu.

The two met when Peterson-Fisher was a senior staff attorney at Equal Rights Advocates, a gender justice nonprofit. “We co-counseled on a couple of cases, and when I moved back into private practice, we decided to work together,” Peterson- Fisher said.

Earlier in her career, after graduating from New York University School of Law, Peterson-Fisher worked with low-income clients at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project and, after a move west, to Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. “I did dependency law and public benefits law. I’ve always been a social services generalist,” she said. “I came to see that a lot of my work related to systemic discrimination against women and immigrants and people of color.” A focus on employment law was a logical next step.

“Impact litigation is what I went to law school to do,” she said. She was co-lead counsel for a class of Subway restaurant franchise workers who alleged wage and hour claims; the matter was complicated because about 70 Subway franchises were involved. The plaintiffs alleged that 29 entities functioned as a single integrated enterprise and that individual franchise owners are joint employers. Villanueva et al., v. Dech Foods LLC et al., CGC-16-555202 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 7, 2016).

The case was resolved for $550,000 and injunctive relief.

When Stanford University announced it would shut down eleven athletic teams, Peterson- Fisher was lead counsel for five plaintiffs from women’s teams who alleged that the closures put the school even further than before out of compliance with Title IX, a federal civil rights law which mandates gender equality in programs that receive federal financial assistance. While Keesing v. The Board of Trustees of The Leland J. Stanford University, 5:21-cv-03555 (N.D. Ca., filed May 12, 2021) was not an employment law case, Peterson-Fisher often represents students in discrimination cases, where the equities involved are frequently also found in workplace situations.

After Stanford reinstated the teams, Peterson- Fisher kept the litigation in progress and the parties reached a settlement that requires Stanford to conduct a review to assess gender equity in a number of specific areas of its athletics program and to develop a plan to ensure that all aspects of the program are in full compliance with Title IX by the 2023-24 academic year. Student-athletes and coaches will be directly engaged in the review. “We were able to work together to come up with a process that will really engage the Stanford athlete community,” said Peterson-Fisher. Stanford’s gender equity plan will be made public on its website by Oct. 1, 2022.

She added that she’s all in regarding her employment law career. “I love my job. I’ve found my place in the world of law.”

--John Roemer