Gary McLaughlin Quoted in Daily Journal on Growing Use of Arbitration Filings in California

Daily Journal has quoted Akin Gump labor and employment partner Gary McLaughlin in the article “Plaintiffs’ attorneys flood employers with arbitration cases.” The article reports that, as employers and employees in California continue to fight over settling disputes through arbitration, attorneys representing plaintiffs are filing more and more individual arbitration cases en masse as a way to fight back in the absence of other available options.

The strategy, according to the article, has proven successful, but the tactic also has its limits, noted McLaughlin. While there could be huge awards given to plaintiffs, he said it also forces plaintiffs’ attorneys to cover huge initial expenses, including filing costs, tracking down employees and paying for discovery if they were not part of a previous class certification attempt.

“This is not an easy strategy for either side,” added McLaughlin. “A lot of employers view it as ‘Yeah, we don’t want one of these mass arbitrations,’ but if the plaintiffs were better off filing a bunch of individual arbitrations or a bunch of individual lawsuits they presumably would have been doing that all along instead of fighting over classification and the enforceability of arbitration agreements.”