Megan Cooney is a partner in the Orange County office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  She is a member of the firm’s Labor and Employment, Class Actions, and Litigation Practice Groups.

Ms. Cooney’s practice focuses on employment and class action litigation. She has represented employers across the country in class actions, collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act, representative actions under the California Private Attorneys General Act, and individual actions in state and federal court alleging a broad range of employment-related claims.  Ms. Cooney has extensive experience litigating wage and hour, discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and worker misclassification claims.

Ms. Cooney also has extensive experience advising employers regarding personnel policies, employee handbooks, job classification, termination issues, and other employment-related matters.  Ms. Cooney also represents clients in connection with workplace investigations and compliance audits.  She has represented clients in a wide variety of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, retail, industrial services, manufacturing, entertainment, and transportation.

Ms. Cooney was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America© as “One to Watch” for 2023 (Labor and Employment).  She is also named in the inaugural 2023 Lawdragon 500 X – The Next Generation guide which highlights those “who will define where the legal profession of our country goes” and whose “leadership will be called upon by businesses and individuals when they face their crossroads.”  In 2022, Ms. Cooney was recognized by Law360 as one of five Rising Stars in Labor & Employment and Lawdragon listed her in its guide of the 500 Leading Corporate Employment Lawyers in the country.

Ms. Cooney’s recent representative experience includes:

• Complete trial victory for Amazon in an exemption misclassification action after defeating class certification and securing summary judgment on the federal claims.  Ortiz v. Amazon.com LLC (Northern District of California).
• Full trial victory for Grubhub, Inc. in Lawson v. Grubhub Holdings Inc., et al. (Northern District of California), in the nation’s first “gig economy” independent contractor misclassification case to go to trial.
• Defeating class certification for various clients, including related to claims premised on various wage and hour violations in courts throughout California.
• Compelling arbitration of claims in wage and hour and worker misclassification actions for various clients.
• Securing full dismissal with prejudice of representative action involving novel issues related to director and officer standing.
• Advising clients in connection with major acquisitions and workforce restructuring.

Ms. Cooney earned her law degree magna cum laude in 2013 from Pepperdine University where she was a Literary Citation Editor for the Pepperdine Law Review and a member of the Interschool Appellate Advocacy Team.  She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 2010 from California Lutheran University, graduating summa cum laude.  Ms. Cooney is a member of the State Bar of California.