Paul Hastings Enhances Market-Leading Employment Practice With Premier 4-Partner Team in New York

NEW YORK – Further strengthening its preeminent Chambers Band 1-ranked employment practice, Paul Hastings LLP announced today that the premier four-partner employment team of Paul Evans, Krissy Katzenstein, Blair Robinson, and Jeffrey Sturgeon has joined the firm in New York.

Uniquely well-positioned to join the firm’s elite employment platform, this top-tier employment litigation team bolsters the firm’s practice on the East Coast while also helping to enhance nationwide capabilities in areas including pay equity/human capital, complex Title VII/civil rights (including regulatory defense), ERISA, and employment-related class actions.

“Paul, Krissy, Blair, and Jeff add tremendous depth to our top-of-the-market employment practice, enhancing our exceptional capabilities on the East Coast and further solidifying us as the leading law firm for employment-related matters,” said firm Chair Frank Lopez. “They further enhance our ability to represent clients at the C-suite and board levels on their most sophisticated and complex matters, including high-profile matters across the employment spectrum.”

Joining from Baker McKenzie, the new partners expand Paul Hastings’ deep bench of experienced employment law litigators who regularly navigate evolving and cutting-edge issues in matters involving class actions, regulatory investigations, and enforcement actions while also advising on compliance issues. They work across industries ranging from entertainment, media, and technology to finance, pharmaceuticals, and retail.

“We’ve long admired the employment litigators at Paul Hastings and the unparalleled work that they consistently do on behalf of clients,” said Evans. “We are excited to collaborate with them and bring our clients into the fold while also helping to grow the overall practice, which is highly sought-after and ripe to take increasing market share across the country.”

Chambers-ranked Evans focuses on representing employers in high profile and high stakes workplace litigation and has a track record of success defending individual and class and collective actions involving discrimination, equal pay, employee benefits and wage and hour issues. He also leads sensitive investigations and advises clients on a broad range of legal and regulatory issues involving artificial intelligence, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, employment testing and validation, sexual harassment, disability discrimination, wage and hour compliance, workforce change initiatives and succession planning.

Also Chambers-ranked, Robinson works across a wide range of labor and employment matters focused on disputes and trial work. He regularly defends large-scale discrimination and equal pay class/collective actions, claims brought by senior executives, non-compete/employee mobility cases, and trade secret matters, in jurisdictions nationwide. He also advises employers on diversity initiatives, comprehensive internal policy audits, and global pay equity reviews, working with clients on litigation avoidance strategies. 

Sturgeon is a trial lawyer who litigates employment, whistleblower, benefits, securities, commercial, and fiduciary liability issues. He has tried dozens of cases to verdict in courts and arbitration tribunals across the country, including class actions and C-suite single plaintiff matters. He also focuses on emergency-style injunction proceedings involving restrictive covenants and trade secrets. Sturgeon’s practice includes investigations and crisis counseling pre-litigation for sensitive employment matters, including discrimination claims, FCA and SOX related issues, and executive departures.

Katzenstein, also recognized by Chambers, focuses on complex employment litigation matters, including class and collective actions involving systemic discrimination and equal pay issues, high stakes single plaintiff matters and federal and state agency investigations of systemic discrimination and harassment claims. She also regularly partners with clients, including boards of directors, to conduct investigations into sensitive workplace concerns. In addition, Katzenstein has extensive experience counseling clients on a wide variety of workplace topics, including sensitive departures, disability and accommodation issues, pay equity, pay reporting, and pay transparency compliance. She regularly assists clients on ESG reporting and partners with them to develop diversity programs and strategies to increase diverse representation and foster inclusive work environments.

Chambers-ranked for nearly 20 years, and Band 1 since 2019, Paul Hastings’ national employment practice is a recognized market leader in complex employment law and human capital issues. The firm is consistently sought out to assist with the largest, most challenging, and headline-grabbing employment and human capital matters for clients including Activision Blizzard, AIG, Disney, Dollar Tree, Google, Meta, Nike, and UPS. The team advises C-suites and boards in addressing increasing regulatory monitoring, enforcement, and shareholder demands, as well as employee activism.

 

About Paul Hastings

With widely recognized elite teams in finance, mergers & acquisitions, private equity, restructuring and special situations, litigation, employment, and real estate, Paul Hastings is a premier law firm providing intellectual capital and superior execution globally to the world’s leading investment banks, asset managers, and corporations.