An Ruda

An Nguyen Ruda is co-chair of the Labor and Employment practice group. She takes a problem-solving approach to personnel issues brought by her clients whether it be advice, counseling, collective bargaining or litigation. An has and seeks long term legal and business relationships with her clients. She would much rather provide compliance review and strategic advice on the front end, rather than have clients pay for litigation on the back end.

An takes no greater pleasure than in seeing her clients grow, and every year where there is no employment litigation for her clients is another year of success.

Where litigation is unavoidable, An has worked on high stakes cases and obtained great results for clients. Some examples include: - Leveraging through litigation the return of stock and ownership to a Company whose C-Suite had allegedly misappropriated trade secrets and misused company assets to form a competing entity. This case was filed in the Northern District of California and implicated citizens of Luxembourg, Russia and Dubai. - Obtaining a defense award in a wrongful termination matter filed by a C-Suite Executive of a financial services company. - Defeating class certification in several wage and hour class actions with over $100 million in exposure. - Obtaining an award against a defense lawyer who keep documents in contravention of a settlement agreement, which resulted in two court of appeal decisions.

Besides advice, counseling and litigation, a significant portion of An’s practice is traditional labor. An has served as the Chief Negotiator on several significant labor contracts, including multiple Master Collective Bargaining Agreements, initial labor agreements as well successor agreements. Most recently, An served as the Chief Negotiator for the Los Angeles Times in their initial contact with The NewsGuild. Also, she negotiated the consensual modification of eight labor agreements in 75 days with six labor unions for a hospital system in bankruptcy. An has negotiated collective labor agreements with healthcare, manufacturing, newspaper unions.

An and her team can also assist employers who have existing unions with advice, arbitrations, unfair labor practice charges, and union petition for election or other attempts to organize. An is known for her creative solutions, and respectful labor relations, and ability to quickly close collective bargaining agreements. Prior to joining the firm, An was a partner at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP. An started her legal career at Crosby Heafey Roach & May, prior to and after its acquisition by Reed Smith LLP.