Cheryl D. Orr 

Cheryl D. Orr is the managing partner of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP’s San Francisco office. She also leads the firm’s international labor and employment practice. She defends clients in class, collective and PAGA actions and in complex single-plaintiff cases as they head to trial. She joined the firm in 2007.

Clients include Vote.org, The RealReal Inc., Airgas USA LLC, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., DS Services of America, Inc., Dyson Direct Inc., AT&T Services, Inc., Molina Healthcare, Robert Half International Inc., The Heritage Group and BMW of North America LLC.

Orr said her 100-member practice group is divided into four sections, all of which have experienced an uptick in work.

“Our traditional labor practice is busy as union organizing activity has risen and we have collective bargaining to do,” she said. “With our immigration team, there’s high demand for us to get visas for clients, plus we have an active pro bono practice in the asylum area.”

“Our CTT team — counseling, transactions and training — is busy as corporate deal making is on the upsurge again and due diligence and compliance are essential,” Orr continued. “And in my area, wage and hour, that’s always busy in California.”

She recalled that early in her career, she worked at a boutique firm and saw her first wage and hour collective action complaint. “The firm thought it was a fad for people to try that on a large scale — and now I have 25 of them on my desk at any given time. People get separated, think it was unfair, go to a plaintiff attorney’s office and come out with a class action. California wage and hour laws are much more complex than in any other state. It’s a fertile field for the plaintiff bar.”

In Orr’s varied practice, a variety of clients is the norm. Representing an international technology company sued in a 100,000-person potential national class action alleging reverse race discrimination, she first successfully moved to exclude the plaintiff expert using Daubert motions. Her Faegre Drinker team defeated class certification. The matter — reduced to a four-person suit — currently awaits rulings on summary judgment motions.

“In class or representative actions, it’s important to look first for an early opportunity to defeat certification,” Orr said. “Not everybody is necessarily similarly situated. Develop the differences.”

For a large national nonprofit, Orr is defending a whistleblower suit filed by a former officer alleging retaliation and other claims. Her client prevailed on four of the five counts in the demurrer she filed.

“We’re always looking for the silver bullet,” Orr said. “Sometimes, good old-fashioned negotiation is the key.”

—John Roemer