Northern California Record Spotlights Akin Gump PAGA Blog, Interviews Jonathan Slowik

In “New PAGA blog includes report on upcoming SCOTUS decision on California law,” Northern California Record, a legal news website owned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, spotlighted Akin Gump’s The PAGA Report blog and interviewed labor and employment counsel Jonathan Slowik, who has co-written every one of the blog’s postings.

The article discusses the blog’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court’s deliberation in Viking v. Moriana, a case involving the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), and then focuses on the blog itself and the relevance of PAGA matters to California employers.

Some highlights from Slowik’s comments:

• “[W]e decided to launch [The PAGA Report] because of what we saw as a void in the commentary out there on California wage and hour litigation. As far as we know, this is the only blog that’s devoted 100 percent to PAGA.”
• “The fact that PAGA cases so rarely go to trial I think it's emblematic of the fact that there's a lot of pressure on an employer to settle a PAGA case, regardless of its merits, because of the kind of worst-case scenario.”
• “I think that employers should be prepared for the real possibility that the threat of Private Attorney General litigation will be present for years to come, no matter what happens in Viking River Cruises.”

To read the full article, click here.