Tao Y. Leung 

Tao Y. Leung heads the labor and employment practice in the California offices of Hogan Lovells US LLP. He joined the firm in 2016. In addition to a busy litigation schedule, he serves as lead employment counsel on cross-border mergers and acquisitions. In the past year, these deals have totaled more than $50 billion.

“I started in general litigation, but my wife works in employment law, and her cases always seemed more interesting than mine,” Leung said. “Employment cases have a natural human element that’s intriguing. Combining the two, I like to work as a business partner to my clients and help keep things from going wrong in the first place.”

Leung keeps an eye on trends in his field. “I enjoy the way the employment law landscape keeps constantly changing,” he said. “You see trends arise as states try different things. California has traditionally been at the forefront of employee-friendly innovations, such as banning non-competes, but recently, Colorado has been in the lead with a pay transparency law.”

In Colorado, Leung successfully resolved for a live music and entertainment promoter claims under the state’s Public Health Emergency Whistleblower law, known as PHEW. The complaint asserted individual claims that the plaintiff was terminated after allegedly reporting that an artist performing at a theater was positive for COVID-19. In a representative matter on behalf of all employees of the company, the claim was that the company allegedly failed to provide requisite notices that complied with the law. Hendrix ex rel State of Colorado v. AEG Presents et al., 22CV31513 (Denver Dist. Ct., filed May 27, 2022).

“To our knowledge, this was one of the first representative actions ever filed under the PHEW Act,” Leung said. “We settled the individual wrongful termination claim and also settled the PHEW Act claims. These were novel issues and legal theories with significant public relations ramifications.”

Leung is often asked to conduct workplace investigations, both for M&A deals and in the wake of misconduct complaints. In the past few months, he has investigated on behalf of a publicly traded insurance company complaints of race, sex and age discrimination against the company’s general counsel. He’s also advised LifeStorage, Inc. in its acquisition by Extra Space Storage Inc. in a $47 billion deal.

“We help the company understand what it’s dealing with. Is it acquiring heavy litigation expenses? Is there a culture of sexual harassment complaints? What is going on?” he said. “I really enjoy the job. At a high level, employment laws weren’t always drafted with the practical implications in mind. We help make sense of that.”

—John Roemer