Fred Alvarez

Meeting of May 16, 2007 - Employment Testing and Screening

EXPERIENCE:

Fred Alvarez is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he heads the firm's employment law litigation practice. He is a specialist in all aspects of labor, employment, and equal opportunity law. He devotes substantial attention to strategic, preventive, and compliance advice and internal investigations. He also maintains an active litigation practice devoted to defending employers in individual and class action settings brought by private and governmental parties. In addition, he focuses a portion of his practice on defending companies against claims brought by former senior executives. For example, he has recently successfully defended against substantial claims brought by former senior executives in two cases that were brought to conclusion. In one, he secured a seven-figure judgment against a former executive in a counterclaim brought against that executive by the employer, and in the other he proved "good cause" to terminate the executive.

Fred is an acknowledged leader in the San Francisco Bay Area and the state of California in his area of practice, and is consistently ranked among the top employment law practitioners representing employers. He is also a leader in professional and bar matters. He was president of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2000, and has been appointed by state and federal courts to a variety of task forces, as well as to judicial-selection and other court committees. He has testified before Congress on several occasions.

Fred's distinguished career of government service includes two successive federal sub-cabinet positions, both of which were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate: Assistant Secretary of Labor for the U.S. Department of Labor (responsible for the Wage and Hour Division and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) from 1987 to 1989, and Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from 1984 to 1987.

Fred joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a partner from Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, where he was the national group manager of the labor and employment litigation group. Fred is fluent in Spanish.

SELECT CLIENTS:

• Chevron Corp.
• Comcast
• Google
• Sun Microsystems
• Sybase, Inc.
• Wal-Mart Stores

EDUCATION:

• J.D., Stanford Law School, 1975
• B.A., Economics, Stanford University, 1972 With Honors

GOVERNMENT SERVICE:

• Assistant Secretary of Labor, U.S. Department of Labor, 1987-1989 Fred managed and directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the Wage and Hour Division as constituent parts of the Employment Standards Administration, the largest agency in the Department of Labor
• Commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 1984-1987
• Trial Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, 1976-1980
• Law Clerk, Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court

ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS:

• Chair, Legal Committee, Employers Group
• President, Bar Association of San Francisco, 2000
• Fellow, College of Labor and Employment Lawyers
• Member, Board of Advisors on the Restatement of Employment Law, American Law Institute
• Management Chair, Employment Sub-Committee of the Class Actions & Derivative Suits Committee, American Bar Association Section of Litigation
• Member, Advisory Board of the American Employment Law Council National Conference Chair in 1996 and 1997
• Member, Stanford Law School Board of Visitors Member of the Executive Committee from 1992-1996
• Chair, Stanford Law School Latino Alumni Association
• Member, Board of Directors, Stanford University Alumni Association
• Member, Board of Directors, KQED
• Member, ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession

HONORS:

• Selected for inclusion in 2007 edition of Best Lawyers in America
• Named in 2006 as a Northern California "Super Lawyer" by Law & Politics magazine
• Recognized by The Recorder as one of the Bay Area's "Top Employment Law Attorneys"
• Among 15 lawyers profiled as one of "California's Top Litigators" by the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal
• Ranked among California's top employment lawyers in Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers
• AV Peer Review Rating, Martindale-Hubbell

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

• Co-author, "The Year Of The Whistleblower: A Primer On The Anti-Retaliation Provisions of Sarbanes Oxley," ALI-ABA Business Law Course Materials Journal, February 2004
• Contributing Editor, "Disability Discrimination" chapter, Employment Litigation Practice Guide, Rutter Group, 2002-the present
• "Disability Discrimination" chapter, Manual on Employment Litigation, 1999-2001, California Judges Association and the Rutter Group
• "Juries and the Civil Rights Act: Getting the Defense Act Together," The Employment Law Strategist, Leader Publications, June 1993

ADMISSIONS:

• State Bar of California

This page was last modified on May 16, 2007.