David J. Reis


Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer 
• San Francisco


David J. Reis is a veteran litigator and negotiator who chairs Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP's labor and employment practice. He has 30-plus years of negotiating experience opposite sometimes-challenging health care unions. And he's often hired to replace existing counsel in wage and hour class actions to position the cases for mediation and to try to negotiate favorable resolutions.


He joined the firm in 2012 when it acquired Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin PC, where he'd worked since 2004.


Reis said he's optimistic about the new Private Attorneys General Act reform legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 1. "We're still litigating a ton of these PAGA cases. The reforms could be helpful because the cases are so complex to take to trial. There's a cottage industry among plaintiff lawyers who file cookie-cutter complaints to try to extract settlements in which the actual plaintiffs see very little in payouts while the lawyers and the state get the most. Hope springs eternal that we'll see some relief."


In PAGA and other cases, quick and efficient solutions are the goal. Reis managed that outcome last year by obtaining summary judgment for an employer that terminated a worker who was on medical leave -- a result he called rare and difficult. Gomez v. OMV Medical Inc. et al., 3:21-cv-01283 (S.D. Cal., filed July 16, 2021).


The plaintiff, pharmacy technician Marceila Gomez, worked at the Balboa Naval Medical Center. She took a medical disability leave for ear surgery but did not provide a return-to-work date and did not respond to her employer's attempts to contact her. 


"They were hounding her to come back, but she was dilatory," Reis said. Eventually Gomez said she would be extending her disability leave for a few weeks but did not provide medical documentation. Reis' client terminated her under its "No call/No show" policy. 


"It was horrible timing, but we were able to demonstrate that her physician had released her to return without restrictions, but she never revealed that, and it worked against her and led to the summary judgment grant," Reis said. 


"Courts tend to be forgiving [in medical disability cases], and it was aggressive of my client to pull the plug, but the judge was swayed by the doctor's note releasing her."


A repeat client is Alacrity Solutions Group LLC, which provides insurance claims management services. Reis quickly and successfully resolved several class actions and PAGA actions, leading to more assignments. 


In one potential misclassification class action involving insurance adjustors, Reis came to see that opposing counsel was unaware of pending legislation that would exempt the adjustors from the law at issue. Gimenez et al. v. Alacrity Solutions Group LLC, 30-2020-01175645-CU-OE-CXC (Orange Co. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 22, 2020).


He negotiated a stay for mediation; the law passed and Reis was able to obtain a modest settlement. "They were blindsided," Reis said.