Damien P. DeLaney

Akerman • Los Angeles


Damien P. DeLaney is co-chair of the wage and hour practice group at Akerman LLP, where he provides management-side litigation defense and counsel to clients in industries such as retail, hospitality and technology. 


He is an editor and contributor for Akerman's HR Defense blog.


DeLaney joined Akerman in 2019. He graduated cum laude from Washington and Lee University School of Law before clerking for Judge John M. Rogers of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


"Studying history, I'd always been inspired by lawyers from the civil rights battles of the '60s," DeLaney said to explain what led him to law school. His clerkship with Rogers taught him how to practice. "Be a leader, treat everyone well," he summed up. 


His practice group is currently analyzing and evaluating major changes to California's Private Attorneys General Act that were negotiated by business and labor groups and signed as AB 2288 and SB 92 by Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 1.


As a result, the business groups behind a November PAGA ballot initiative withdrew the measure. 


"PAGA reform is our big topic now," DeLaney said in early July. "A lot of these changes appear to be inside baseball for our clients, but there are important procedural deadlines and other things in there that we need to know in responding to claims. We're gearing up to educate our clients even as PAGA claims continue actively to be filed."


The measure is not retroactive. It applies to claims filed after June 19. "I have one here that's just in the door," he said. "We're working out new approaches to intake. In the past, you had months to get your arms around a new case. Not anymore."


DeLaney does not discuss client names or the details of individual cases. But he explained how he managed to prevail for a large manufacturing company faced with a wage and hour complaint asserting claims for missed meals and rest breaks.


"An important lesson from Brinker is that the standard is for the employer to provide the break, not to ensure that it's taken," DeLaney said, referring to the state Supreme Court's 2012 holding on the topic in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court.


So, he deployed investigators to ask individual plaintiffs about their experience. "We talked to folks in the field and found that they followed practices that tracked Brinker, even though the company's written policy did not," he said. "That let us through enough doubt on actual practice versus the handbook policy to show that class claims could not predominate. So, we resolved matters in a settlement that left our client happy with the outcome."