Malcolm Heinicke and Katherine Forster Named 2024 Top Labor and Employment Lawyers by the Daily Journal

The Daily Journal named Co-Managing Partner Malcolm Heinicke and partner Katherine Forster to the 2024 Top Labor and Employment Lawyers list. The annual award recognizes the top labor and employment attorneys in California.

Ms. Forster was recognized for her decades of experience helping companies navigate highly sensitive claims for sexual harassment and abuse, gender discrimination and pay equity, as well as her litigation of more than 100 wage-and-hour employment discrimination class actions in her 22 years at MTO. Her extensive client list includes See’s Candies, BlackBerry, Johns Mansville, Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, Downtown Women’s Center and Planned Parenthood, among others.

While her litigation work keeps her the busiest, it isn’t always that type of work that her clients appreciate the most. “We are as much business counselors as anything else…My clients want to comply [with employment laws], and it is very difficult in California to get it right,” said Ms. Forster. “I’ve had people say that a five- or 10-minute phone call sometimes is more valuable than an entire year’s worth of litigation. From our client’s perspective, it’s often what you don’t see in the courts that is actually of the utmost and highest value.”

A seasoned litigator, this is Mr. Heinicke’s 16th consecutive year on the Daily Journal’s Top Labor and Employment Lawyers list. He was recognized for his three important cases before state Supreme Courts this year. These cases pertained to manageability requirements for PAGA lawsuits in California and “take-home-COVID” claims for employers—for which MTO and he filed amicus briefs and then presented arguments in the California Supreme Court—and employers’ rights to enforce so-called “forfeiture for competition” covenants for departing employers, which is pending before the Delaware Supreme Court.

Although the California Supreme Court ultimately ruled that trial courts cannot strike the representative allegations in PAGA lawsuit, it did provide employers a key advantage by clarifying that such courts can limit the scope of representative actions. And, the attention on the issue led the legislature to amend the PAGA statute to allow expressly for trial court to impose manageability requirements. In the second case, the California Supreme Court adopted our client’s position, holding that employers have no duty to prevent third-party infection outside the workplace. Mr. Heinicke credits much of his victories to his colleagues, noting that it is “always a team effort.” “It’s gratifying that in these three cases, sophisticated clients and industry groups have come to MTO to have us advocate their positions before these two Supreme Courts,” he said.

Read the Daily Journal’s profile on Ms. Forster. (Subscription may be required)

Read the Daily Journal’s profile on Mr. Heinicke. (Subscription may be required)