Biography

Mr. Meer is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. He is a member of the Labor & Employment Department and represents employers and management in all aspects of labor and employment law.

Mr. Meer has extensive experience in litigation and client counseling of employers in the areas of class action litigation, wage & hour litigation and compliance, wrongful discharge, discharge in violation of public policy, sexual and other harassment, employment discrimination, disability and reasonable accommodation issues, labor arbitration, unfair business practice litigation under California Business & Professions Code Section 17200, employee benefits litigation and employee relations, and protection of employer trade secrets and non-competition issues.

Trial and Case Victories

Mr. Meer is one of only a handful of employment lawyers in Southern California with successful class action trial experience, including the successful defense of wage and hour claims before a Los Angeles jury. Mr. Meer has also obtained complete defense verdicts for employers in over a dozen other jury trials.

Prior to trial, Mr. Meer has a consistent record of defeating class certification in wage and hour cases as well as discrimination and civil rights cases. Mr. Meer also has obtained summary judgment for employers in over 50 cases in state and federal courts and has won appellate cases before the California Court of Appeal and the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Meer currently has a case pending before the California Supreme Court, in which the plaintiffs are challenging the denial of class certification.

Mr. Meer has been particularly successful in recovering significant amounts of money on behalf of employers and companies, after being sued by former employees. He has recovered attorneys’ fees in multiple cases after winning dismissal of their lawsuits, with awards of attorneys’ fees ranging from $5,000 to $990,000.

Successful Settlements

Mr. Meer has negotiated favorable class action settlements in several cases involving wage and hour, unfair competition and discrimination claims. Recently, he negotiated a class action settlement with a payment representing less than 3% of the potential exposure in a case involving 25,000 current and former employees with potential damages and penalties exceeding $115 million.

He also recently negotiated a settlement for less than 9% of the potential exposure in a class action case that settled on the second day of trial. Before trial, the plaintiff class demanded a settlement in excess of $15 million. Mr. Meer has also negotiated favorable settlements in class action cases brought by large labor unions.

Training, Audits and Litigation Avoidance

Mr. Meer can arrange on-site training for in-house counsel, executive officers, human resources representatives, management or any level of employees through the “Seyfarth At Work” training series. This training focuses on current issues in employment law presented in programs such as “Managing Within The Law,” “Human Resources Nuts And Bolts,” “Responding To Internal Complaints” and state-required non-harassment training.

Mr. Meer conducts full-scale or topical audits of human resources policies or practices to help avoid litigation. These audits include review of all written policies, review of all required employer postings and notices, review of exempt and non-exempt job classifications and statistical sampling of payroll records to identify potential issues regarding overtime, meal periods and rest periods.

Professional Recognition

For the last ten consecutive years, Mr. Meer has been listed in the Bar Registry of Preeminent Lawyers and has an “AV” Rating from Martindale-Hubbell/Thomson-Reuters, which is their highest peer review rating for ethnical standards and legal ability. Mr. Meer also has been elected to be included in the Southern California Super Lawyers in the area of Labor & Employment Law in a peer ranking survey in Los Angeles Magazine and has been included in the Nationwide Corporate Counsel Edition of Super Lawyers based on national rankings from in-house corporate counsel. Mr. Meer has also been listed in Marquis Who’s Who In American Business.

Mr. Meer is frequently quoted as an expert in labor & employment issues and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, The National Law Journal, msnbc.com, workforce.com, law.com, complianceweek.com, Inc.Magazine, The Los Angeles Business Journal, The Los Angeles Daily Journal, The San Francisco Recorder, and Legal Elite.

Education

J.D., Boston University School of Law (1989)

Law Journal Executive Editor for Publication

Honorable Paul J. Liacos Scholar in the Law

B.S., Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, with honors (1986)

Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society

Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society

Admissions

• California