Sabrina A. Beldner

Sabrina A. Beldner

LOS ANGELES - Sabrina A. Beldner has been very busy lately for several reasons. One reason is she became chair of McGuireWoods’ labor and employment department just two years ago. Her new management responsibilities were enough that she had to step down from leading the firm’s LGBTQ+ Lawyers Network, work that was close to her heart for three years.

A second reason is that, unlike many attorneys who defend companies from employee lawsuits, she also represents her clients regarding union activity, including negotiations, administration of collective bargaining agreements and grievances.

A new concern stems from many people with union-friendly attitudes departing major metropolises to live in smaller cities in the south and southwest, where unions are rare. She is seeing an uptick in questions from clients in those areas about potential organizing activities.

In fact, she and her team are training managers for several clients on labor awareness, including best practices for positive engagement with workers and “what they can and can’t say if a conversation starts with an employee about a union.”

Beldner said she is often a “one-stop shop” for her unionized clients because she also handles their individual and class action employment matters.

That sort of litigation generally also has kept her busy. She has had some good successes lately, blocking a pair of putative class actions early with procedural moves. She also compelled another plaintiff to arbitration using Nevada law.

That case was unusual because her defendant client is a national trucking company whose drivers are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act. But a federal judge in Los Angeles said that the law in Nevada, where the company is incorporated, requires enforcing the trucking company’s mediation and arbitration policy. Naler v. Schneider National Carriers Inc., 8:21-cv- 01019, (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 5, 2021).

Beldner is concerned about another exemption to the federal act. A new law signed early this year says an arbitration agreement “is not valid with respect to a case that includes a claim of sexual assault or sexual harassment,” she said.

It could turn out that plaintiffs could simply assert a claim of sexual harm in a case with many other claims, “and that claim will get the entirety of the case excluded based on the plain statutory language,” she said. “The defense bar is going to argue for a more commonsense interpretation.”

-Don DeBenedictis