Peter Rukin

Before becoming a full-time arbitrator and mediator, Peter spent 30 years representing management and employees in employment cases, including complex class action/PAGA wage and hour litigation, fair employment practice issues, and equal employment opportunity (discrimination and retaliation) claims.

Peter graduated from New York University School of Law in 1991 and served as law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Harry D. Leinenweber in Chicago. Following his clerkship, he practiced at firms in Chicago (Stowell & Friedman) and New York (Vladeck Waldman Elias & Engelhard) and served as Of Counsel in the Employment Law Department at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in San Francisco, before starting his own firm in March 2003.

Peter is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He is currently Co-Chair of the American Bar Association ADR Section Employment Committee and serves on the Executive Committee of the Alameda County Bar Association Labor and Employment Section. He is past Chair of the Bar Association of San Francisco Labor & Employment Section and a former member of the State Bar of California Labor & Employment Section Executive Committee. He is a chapter co-author of the mediation chapter of the CEB Treatise California Wage and Hour Law and Litigation and has written numerous articles on employment issues in national and state bar publications. Peter has testified on employment law issues before various committees of the California legislature and the Women and Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament.

Peter is admitted to the State Bars of California, Illinois, and New York, the bars of various district courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Representative Cases and Experience

Peter represented clients in employment cases for over three decades. He was Of Counsel in the Employment Law Department at Paul Hastings, where he represented numerous fortune 500 companies. He served as counsel for plaintiffs in several groundbreaking sex discrimination class actions against Wall Street investment firms and was one of the first lawyers in California to take a wage and hour class action to class arbitration. Peter has been mediating employment disputes since 2002 and is frequently chosen as a mediator to resolve individual and complex employment cases.