David J. Reis 

Difficult litigation matters plus labor contract negotiations with health care unions on behalf of institutional clients are a specialty of David J. Reis, an Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP partner who chairs the firm’s labor and employment practice group. He’s a go-to lawyer whom clients call to replace existing counsel in difficult cases.

In late June, Reis was at the vacation home he and his family built near Tahoe during the COVID-19 pandemic, cooling off after a successful bargaining session with nurses at El Camino Hospital concluded earlier than expected.

“We ratified the contract this week, and I’d been expecting a busy summer on this,” he said. “Coming out of Covid, nurses are in high demand and there’s a shortage, so there have been strikes all over — at Stanford, at Kaiser. Here we managed to keep everybody happy without a lot of posturing.”

El Camino Hospital, Reis noted, is his oldest client. “I’ve represented them since 2000, and I’ve been doing contract negotiations for more than 30 years. Nurses have a tough job, and I don’t begrudge them the money they earn.”

Reis’ cordial approach to his bargaining counterparties is a key to his success. “Some new clients tell me they want the meanest junkyard dog at the table, and I tell them that’s not going to be me. It’s not productive. Labor contract negotiations are different from litigation, where you can be mean and nasty and then walk away. With contracts, you have to work with these people over time. It’s like a marriage.”

At the end of some contract sessions, union reps have been known to give Reis a gag gift to cement friendly relations. “Once, SEIU gave me a ‘Star Wars’ tie that said ‘The Dark Side,’” he laughed. “But this time, I didn’t get anything from the El Camino nurses.”

Earlier this year, Reis used his long experience to help avert a nursing strike at MarinHealth Medical Center. “I advised behind the scenes on that one. They called me on a Friday night to say that a strike was suddenly scheduled. I had some cellphone numbers for federal mediators and we were able to get to the table by Tuesday and work things out.”

Reis was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar at Columbia Law School; he joined Arnold & Porter in 2012 when it acquired Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin PC, where he’d worked since 2004.

“I try to keep the temperature low and get contracts negotiated without heartburn,” he said.

—John Roemer