Overview

Keahn Morris is a partner in the Labor and Employment Practice Group in the firm's San Francisco office and is a team leader of the firm's national Traditional Labor Law Team.

Areas of Practice

Keahn represents clients across the country in court, as well as in proceedings before federal and state administrative agencies. Keahn's practice encompasses labor/management relations, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unfair labor practice and representation proceedings, union representation campaigns, labor negotiations, labor arbitrations, single plaintiff and class action litigation, preventive counseling, and labor-related advice for mergers, acquisitions, startups, workforce reductions, and other types of business restructuring. Keahn is an experienced trial lawyer, having represented employers in 75+ trials and arbitrations before judges, arbitrators, and various administrative agencies. Keahn's clients range from Fortune 100 companies to non-profits. He represents clients in numerous industries, including healthcare, energy, aerospace and defense, technology, media, entertainment, video games, transportation, the "gig" economy, hospitality, sports venues/arenas, food and beverage, retail, manufacturing, automotive, construction, agriculture, and cannabis.  

Labor Advice and Litigation

Keahn has extensive experience across the entire union/labor field. He has successfully handled some of the largest, most complex labor/management relations disputes and issues confronting employers, including their response to evolving economic, legal, and political change, as well as employee relations unrest generated by this change. He has provided employers with strategic representation related to union organizing campaigns and "corporate campaigns." He has guided employers of all sizes through complicated labor relations issues involving union elections, union decertifications, lockouts, rapid response tactics to economic warfare (e.g., strikes, pickets, and boycotts), and other high pressure union events by nearly all of the major unions in the U.S., as well as many grass roots employee associations, spin-offs from the major U.S. unions, and union-backed "coalitions" and "worker centers."

Keahn also represents employers at the bargaining table and in strategic support roles for first and successor collective bargaining agreements. He provides advice concerning project labor agreements, labor peace agreements, and political alliances with labor organizations when desirable to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Keahn has extensive experience representing employers in arbitration, unfair labor practice and representation proceedings, and litigation related to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the Railway Labor Act (RLA), and state labor relations laws. He represents clients in proceedings before the NLRB, National Mediation Board (NMB), and state labor relations boards (e.g., Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB)). Keahn is an expert on secondary boycotts and has successfully sued unions on behalf of employers for engaging in illegal labor activity, including recently obtaining a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is now a leading case concerning illegal boycotts and hot cargo agreements under the NLRA. Keahn also has experience with federal and state labor injunction cases.

Business Acquisitions and Restructuring 

Keahn provides strategic advice on labor-related issues that arise in the context of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, startups, downsizing, reorganization, relocation, and turn-around work. He regularly works with corporate clients and private equity firms to guide them in structuring corporate transactions to minimize risk and maximize the value and success of those transactions from a labor, employment, and employee benefits perspective. This includes transaction planning, due diligence, deal documentation, managing actual or potential collective bargaining relationships, re-negotiation of labor agreements, pre- and post-closing integration activities, and ensuring employees easily transition from one employer to another.

Employment Advice and Litigation

Keahn represents employers in employment actions before state and federal trial and appellate courts and arbitrators. He litigates disputes involving wage and hour class actions, Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) actions, whistleblowing, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, breach of contract, unfair competition, and related claims. Keahn represents clients before federal and state administrative agencies, including the Department of Labor (DOL), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), California Civil Rights Department (fka Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH)), and California Labor Commissioner's Office/Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), and other human rights commissions and labor agencies. 

Keahn also provides strategic advice to in-house legal counsel, labor relations professionals, human resources leaders, and business associations on employment-related risk management, including conducting effective workplace investigations, workforce planning, employee recruiting and hiring practices, harassment prevention and investigation, wage and hour compliance, pay equity, employee mobility, and employee discipline/terminations. Keahn is published and quoted frequently on a variety of labor and employment law issues in major academic and business publications and frequently conducts national and statewide training programs.

Honors

Honors

Northern California Rising Star, Super Lawyers, 2014-2020

Insights

Articles

Labor and Employment Law Blog Posts

Healthcare Law Blog Posts

Cannabis Law Blog Posts

Real Estate, Land Use, & Environmental Law Blog Posts

Media Mentions

Speaking Engagements

  • California Association of Health Facilities – Labor Law Update, San Diego (July 2023)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Labor and Employment Laws Impacting the Long Term Care/Skilled Nursing Industry, Webinar (January 2022)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Labor & Employment Update: Part 1 and Part 2, Webinar (September 2021)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Labor Law Update, Webinar (March 2021)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – 2021 Labor and Employment Law Update, Webinar (January 2021)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Labor Law 101: Emerging Laws and Trends, The Legal Implications of COVID-19, Webinar (July 2020)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Possible Reclassification of Certain Job Descriptions Due to AB 5, Webinar (July 2020)
  • National Retail Federation Committee on Employment Law – Millennials and Unions, San Francisco (April 2019)
  • California Association of Health Facilities – Union Relations in the Healthcare Industry, Palm Springs (November 2018)
  • Labor & Employment Law Update, Fall 2017 Seminar Series, San Francisco (October 2017)
  • California Labor and Employment Law Update, California Association of Health Facilities Summer Conference, Long Beach (July 2016)
  • Breakfast With Your Labor Lawyer, Spring 2017 Seminar Series, Palo Alto (May 2017)
  • California Labor and Employment Law Update, California Association of Health Facilities Spring Legislative Conference, Sacramento (March 2016)
  • Surveying the New Labor Law Landscape: A Rocky Road Ahead, San Francisco (May 2015)
  • California Labor and Employment Law Update, California Association of Health Facilities Spring Legislative Conference, Sacramento (March 2015)
  • Labor Roundtable: The New Joint Employer Standard Under the NLRB, San Francisco (December 2015)
  • Labor Seminar Breakfast Series, New Developments Under the NLRB, San Francisco (December 2014)
  • California Breakfast Series: California Workplace Law Update, San Francisco (December 2013)

Events

Memberships

Memberships

American Bar Association - Committee on Practice and Procedure Under the NLRA

Bar Association of San Francisco

California Association of Health Facilities (CAHF)

California Bar Association

Digital Media

Education

J.D., University of California, Hastings, 2010

B.A., Northwestern University, 2007

Clerkships

  • Extern to the Honorable Charles R. Breyer, U.S. District Court for the Northern District
  • Extern to the National Labor Relations Board Division of Judges – San Francisco

Admissions

  • California
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California
  • U.S. District Court, Central District of California
  • U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
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