Jennifer L. Liu

Katz Banks Kumin • San Francisco


Jennifer L. Liu is the co-managing partner of Katz Banks Kumin LLP's new San Francisco office. She is a nationally recognized litigator in employment discrimination and wage and hour class actions. She also represents individuals in litigation and negotiations in all areas of employment law. 


She joined the firm in 2023 by merging her own shop, Liu Peterson-Fisher LLP, with the Katz Banks firm to open Katz Banks' California office. Liu holds a Harvard BA, cum laude; an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business; and a JD from Stanford Law School.


She is a board member for the Center for WorkLife Law, an advocacy and research organization that seeks to advance racial, gender and class equity. 


An early interest in civil rights led Liu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who was living in San Jose, to write a high school paper about a groundbreaking case in the early 1990s that successfully challenged racial bias at Denny's restaurants. Then, her father was fired from his engineering management job for what he believed to be racial reasons. "He couldn't find a lawyer. He told me, 'If you are a lawyer, you have power,'" Liu said. "That crystalized my career path for me."


She formed her own firm in 2015, then added law partner Rebecca B. Peterson-Fisher in 2022. She said their move to Katz Banks Kumin is a major step forward. "Combining forces with lawyers I deeply respect like Debra Katz and Lisa Banks will put us at the forefront of major employment and civil rights cases," Liu said.


Liu and colleagues are co-lead with Pardell, Kurzyk & Girablado PLLC in a statewide Private Attorneys General Act case over the alleged misclassification of operations managers at a fast food chain and the failure to pay them overtime. Robertson et al. v. Raising Cane's, CVR112306468 (Riverside Co. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 1, 2023).


"Raising Cane's is a chain that's relatively new to California," she said. "They sell really good chicken fingers with lots of sauces. But they misclassify their second-line managers as salaried employees." 


The matter has evolved into a PAGA action plus a number of individual arbitrations. "We have a mass arbitration strategy," she said, emphasizing that she was speaking generally. "In past cases, we have found that the cost to defendants of numerous arbitrations is significant, and it places significant pressure on the defense. But the arbitrations come from a contract they wrote."


Liu believes her work leads toward progress. "When we research these cases, we often hear that businesses are trending toward compliance with employment law. Some resist, but eventually the business community catches on."