Zach P. Hutton

Zach Hutton is a partner in the Labor and Employment Practice Group in the firm's San Francisco office. 

Areas of Practice

Zach's practice spans all aspects of employment law, including discrimination and harassment, family and medical leaves, and wage and hour issues. He has successfully represented employers in numerous class and collective actions, agency investigations, individual plaintiff cases, and administrative hearings. He has tried cases to verdict and secured early dismissal of individual and class claims. Zach has extensive experience in wage and hour litigation and advice work. He provides advice and compliance guidance on complex wage and hour issues to clients in a variety of industries, including technology, retail, financial services, staffing, hospitality, health care, and insurance.

Zach also lectures and writes frequently on employment law issues. He co-authored four major wage and hour chapters of the Matthew Bender treatise entitled California Employment Law, serves as a member of the editorial board for the Matthew Bender publication, California Labor and Employment Bulletin and has contributed to the supplement to the ABA’s Fair Labor Standards Act treatise.

Experience

• Defeated class certification and PAGA representative status of an overtime misclassification case for a Fortune 500 bio-technology company, and then won on appeal.
• Defeated class certification of three coordinated wage and hour class actions that alleged meal and rest break violations on behalf of nearly 25,000 employees, and then won on appeal.
• Defeated a PAGA representative action for a Fortune 100 company by winning summary judgment on all claims.
• Won a precedent-setting appeal involving California’s pay stub requirements.
• Prevailed in challenges to classification of workers as independent contractors before the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.
• Achieved walk-away dismissals of class and PAGA claims for numerous clients.
• Won motions to dismiss with prejudice putative class actions at the pleadings stage.
• Successfully represented companies in a variety of industries in enforcement proceedings before the Department of Labor and Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Honors

• Labor & Employment, Chambers USA, 2021-2024
• Labor and Employment Disputes, The Legal 500, 2021-2024
• Leading Lawyer: Employment, Best Lawyers, 2022-2024
• Top Labor and Employment Lawyer, Daily Journal, 2022

Speaking Engagements

• “Overview of PAGA Reform Bills,” August 7, 2024
• “Annual Wage and Hour Update,” November 14, 2023
• "Annual Employment Law Update & MCLE Conference," January 10, 2023
• “Annual Wage and Hour Update,” November 9, 2022
• “Evolving Issues in Contingent Worker Compliance and Risk Mitigation,” March 17, 2022
• “Post-COVID Employment Law Developments,” February 8, 2022
• ”Annual Employment Law Update & MCLE Conference,” January 11, 2022
• “Annual Wage and Hour Update,” November 10, 2021
• “Annual Employment Law Update & MCLE Conference,” January 12, 2021
• “Annual Wage and Hour Update,” November 12, 2020
• "The Return to Hospitality," May 8th, 2020
• "Webinar: COVID-19: Employment Update," March 19th, 2020
• “Annual Employment Law Update & MCLE Conference,” January 16, 2020
• “Annual Wage and Hour Update,” November 14, 2019
• “Annual Employment Law Update & MCLE Conference,” January 16, 2019
• "Department of Labor's Push to Update the FLSA Regulations," June 13th, 2019

Memberships

• Bar Association of San Francisco, former member of the Labor and Employment Law Section Executive Committee
• Board of Directors, International Bird Rescue