Peter Scott Rukin, Attorney

Peter Scott Rukin is a partner with Rukin Hyland Doria & Tindall LLP in San Francisco .  He has successfully litigated class action and individual employment cases in California and across the United States.  He has been named a "Northern California Super Lawyer" in 2008 and has received LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's highest "AV" Peer Review Rating.  Peter has served as counsel of record in various state and federal reported decisions, including as counsel for amici Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, et al. in Kolstad v American Dental Association, 527 U.S. 526 (1999). 

Peter specializes in complex litigation, with a focus on wage and hour and equal employment opportunity claims.  Since 2003, as class counsel he has recovered tens of millions of dollars on behalf of thousands of California employees and consumers.  Peter also represents clients with respect to their individual employment law claims, including claims for discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, breach of contract, whistleblower retaliation, and mass layoff/ WARN Act violations. 

Peter graduated from New York University School of Law in 1991 and served as law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago .  Following his clerkship, he practiced at employee-side firms in Chicago (Stowell & Friedman) and New York (Vladeck Waldman Elias & Engelhard) and served as Of Counsel in the Employment Law Department at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in San Francisco , before starting his own firm in March 2003. 

Peter frequently speaks and writes on employment law issues.  He is the author of the section on Rule 23(b)(1) class actions in the upcoming BNA treatise Class Actions in Employment Law and has written numerous articles on employment issues in national and state bar publications. 

Peter currently serves on the California State Bar Labor & Employment Section Executive Committee, and is a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association and the Bar Association of San Francisco.  He also serves on the San Francisco Regional Board of the New Israel Fund and is a past member of the board of directors of Dolores Street Community Services.  Peter is admitted to the State Bars of California and New York, the bars of various district courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Educational History:

J.D., New York University School of Law (1991)

B.A., University of Illinois (1988)

Recent Presentations:

Employee or Independent Contractor: Pros and Cons, Continuing Education of the Bar (San Francisco, California, 2009)

Employment Law Update, Section Education Institute (Berkeley, California, 2009)

Discovery in a Disability Discrimination Case, Labor & Employment Section (San Francisco, 2008)

Articles:

Awakening a Sleeping Giant: The Resurgence of Wage and Hour Litigation

Representing Workers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Illinois Minimum Wage Law

• Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith v. Adcock 1997

• Meloff v. New York Life 1999

• Lott v. Westinghouse Savannah River Corp. 2000

• Kolstad v. ADA 1999

• Feder v. Bristol Myers Squibb 1999

• Collins v. Overnite 2003