Rebecca Aragon has successfully litigated over 500 suits to conclusion. Her practice focuses on leading litigation, with particular emphasis on class and PAGA action defense in high stakes litigation. She has a proven track record of guiding U.S., international, and foreign sovereign employers through the intricacies of federal and state employment laws to achieve favorable outcomes in matters involving wage and hour claims, contract disputes, arbitration agreement enforcement, trade secret claims, sovereign immunity, and claims of wrongful termination, whistleblowing and discrimination.
Rebecca provides clients with proactive strategies to manage litigation risk and ensure compliance with employment laws concerning disability accommodations, leaves of absence, discrimination, and wage and hour issues. She also counsels clients on matters involving employee hiring, discipline and termination, workplace policies, and labor implications of mergers and acquisitions.
In international matters, Rebecca is experienced in advising foreign government employers regarding sovereign immunity issues and the application of federal and state employment laws to their personnel in the U.S.
Rebecca represents companies employing Spanish-speaking workforces in the U.S. and Mexico. She provides Spanish language services concerning union avoidance, harassment prevention, policy training, and company investigations. She drafts Spanish language handbooks, policies and arbitration agreements for clients. In litigation, Rebecca has special experience deposing Spanish-speaking parties and conducting Spanish language declaration campaigns in class actions.
Rebecca has represented companies in the retail, staffing, air cargo, medical, defense contracting, financial, and fuel and energy industries. Examples of her significant matters include:
- Persuading opposing counsel to abandon a PAGA and class action involving unionized employees in exchange for a $16,000 settlement of the plaintiff’s individual claims
- Obtaining Complex Litigation Class Action court approval of settlement involving no payments to class members in a class action alleging labor code and PAGA violations
- Waging an effective declaration campaign resulting in plaintiffs’ abandonment of class action claims that thousands of computer technicians were misclassified as exempt professionals
- Negotiating the resolution of representative action wage claims involving unpaid intern allegations for no monetary, injunctive or other relief
- Obtaining a complete dismissal of a wage and hour class action without the payment of any sums to class members or opposing counsel
- Successfully settling challenging wage and hour PAGA and class actions for nominal percentages of multimillion unpaid wage demands
- Defeating successive motions for class certification in an action involving meal and rest period violation claims, and misclassification of personnel working throughout California after successfully moving the class action into arbitration
- Persuading opposing counsel in several class and PAGA actions to forgo formal discovery and agree to scaled-back informal discovery, and negotiating dismissals of class action claims going back four years and limiting plaintiffs to one-year periods of limited penalty claims
- Defeating and negotiating dismissals of wrongful termination, harassment, discrimination and other claims in various state and federal courts and before the EEOC
- Prevailing on a motion to dismiss a federal wage and hour class action brought against a prominent non-profit organization by volunteers claiming employee status
- Developing litigation avoidance strategies that enabled a foreign sovereign employer to terminate consulate office personnel working in the U. S. without ensuing claims
Rebecca is a widely published author and frequent lecturer on labor and employment issues affecting national, state and foreign sovereign employers.
Before joining Littler, Rebecca was a partner and chair of an AmLaw 100 national law firm’s labor and employment practice in Los Angeles, and a member of a prior law firm’s board of directors. She served for two years as a law clerk to the Hon. Terry J. Hatter, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. In law school, she was the editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Immigration Law Reporter.