Civil Justice Project Spotlight
Civil Justice Project Spotlight
Attorneys who stand up and make a difference for consumers.
Shannon Liss-Riordan
Public Citizen shines the spotlight on Shannon Liss-Riordan for zealously representing her clients, demonstrating ingenuity as a lawyer, and standing up to abusive corporate practices.
Shannon’s law practice, Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C., focuses on class-action wage and hour litigation. Her firm’s primary areas have involved tipped workers and independent contractor misclassification. Her practice changed dramatically when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 2011 decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. The Court upheld class-action waivers in the fine print of contracts, adding a significant additional challenge to this line of work.
That didn’t stop Shannon. Since that decision, her firm has been giving companies that use forced arbitration provisions with class-action waivers a taste of their own medicine: Her busy law office files wronged employee complaints individually. Needless to say, there is a ton of bulk mail now going out from her office — and there has been a shift in the way the firm must often handle class litigation — but it is working. Defendants who thought that class-action waivers would prevent them from being sued for their systemic wage violations are now finding they must defend these cases en masse. And typically the defendants have to pay the expenses to have these arbitrations resolved one-by-one.
Thank you, Shannon, for all you do on behalf of employees.