Michael Rubin 

When it comes to plaintiff-side employment law in California, Michael Rubin is a go-to authority who remains at the center of some of the state’s most significant workplace rights cases.

The Altschuler Berzon LLP partner joined the firm in 1981, straight from his clerkships for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Circuit Judge James R. Browning and U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew.

“Staying with the same firm for 40-plus years may show a failure of the imagination, but as my interests expanded, this place has given me great latitude to work on cases that matter,” Rubin said.

The range of his work was evident on July 17 when the state Supreme Court ruled his way in a critical affirmation of the Private Attorneys General Act, contradicting the U.S. Supreme Court’s view in Viking River Cruises that arbitration clauses eliminate PAGA claims.

Rubin had argued before the justices for the outcome they delivered. “It’s a complete victory,” he said. “the state Supreme Court unanimously rejected Justice [Samuel A.] Alito’s mistaken understanding of California law.” Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., S274671 (Ca. S. Ct., filed May 20, 2022).

At risk was California’s 2014 Iskanian holding, which Rubin had also co-argued before the state Supreme Court, that pre-dispute agreements waiving PAGA are invalid.

Following Viking River, Rubin wouldn’t take the U.S. high court’s “no” for an answer. Despite the justices’ 8-1 ruling that employers may require workers to split their PAGA claims between arbitration and court, the text of the decision left it to states to fill in some blanks.

“The court gave us an opening and we took it,” Rubin said. He developed a set of arguments to show the Viking River opinion misconstrued PAGA standing law. Lawyers used Rubin’s model briefs to obtain five published court of appeal opinions accepting his arguments.

“This was like-open source briefing,” said Rubin, who then presented his arguments to the state high court in May 2023. “I’ve been very involved in writing, speaking, drafting and consulting on this issue.”

On the July Monday that the high court announced its Adolph opinion, Rubin was in Pasadena arguing a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case. He sought to reverse a lower court’s ruling that mass Covid layoffs do not trigger an employer’s obligation to pay accrued vacation and other benefits. Hartstein v. Hyatt Corp., 22055276 (9th Cir., filed March 16, 2022).

His firm had also argued and won the second state Supreme Court opinion released that day, one that expanded access to the courts for organizations under the Unfair Competition Law.

“I can’t remember having a morning quite like that,” Rubin said.

—John Roemer