Keahn N. Morris

Keahn Morris is an associate in the Labor and Employment Practice Group in the firm's San Francisco office.

Areas of Practice

Keahn's practice focuses on all areas of labor and employment law, including counseling of management-side clients, traditional union/labor relations, and employment litigation. He is an experienced trial lawyer with first-chair trial experience. He has significant experience in numerous industries including healthcare, transportation, aerospace and defense, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, wine, sports and entertainment venues, manufacturing, cannabis, construction, technology, and the “gig” economy.

Keahn has represented employers in over 50 trials before arbitrators, judges, and various administrative agencies. He has extensive experience across the entire traditional union/labor field, including labor arbitrations, unfair labor practice and representation proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the United States courts of appeals, and other federal court litigation involving complex union/labor issues, including seeking and defending injunctions, as well as cases involving alleged unlawful discharges/disciplines, strike and bargaining disputes, union organizing campaigns, unilateral changes, plant closures and outsourcing of work, successorship issues, management rights, and drug testing and invasion of privacy issues. He is an expert on secondary boycotts and has successfully sued unions on behalf of employers, including recently obtaining a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which is now one of the leading cases concerning illegal secondary boycotts and hot cargo agreements under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Keahn also represents employers in employment actions in state and federal court and before arbitrators and governmental agencies, including disputes involving wage and hour class actions, Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) actions, whistleblowing, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, breach of contract, trade secrets, and unfair competition.   

Keahn is also a trusted advisor and regularly counsels corporate executives, in-house legal counsel, and human resources leaders, including those in the Fortune 500, as well as business associations, on matters such as labor strategy, union avoidance, and responding to union backed corporate organizing campaigns. He has experience advising companies during large, nationwide campaigns and has guided employers of all sizes through difficult labor relations issues involving union elections, union decertifications, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, picketing, collective actions, and public relations battles by nearly all of the major unions in the United States. He regularly lectures at conferences and advises employers on crucial labor and employment-related topics such as conducting effective workplace investigations, workforce planning (including workforce growth, reorganizations, and reductions-in-force), employee recruiting and hiring practices, harassment prevention and investigation, wage and hour compliance, employee discipline and terminations, and general labor relations and human resources strategies.

For unionized clients, Keahn negotiates collective bargaining agreements on behalf of employers – in situations ranging from “hard bargaining” to recapture management rights to more collaborative negotiations – in all cases designed to assist clients in achieving their primary labor goals. He also negotiates project labor agreements and so called “labor peace agreements” (i.e., card check neutrality agreements) on behalf of employers.

In addition, Keahn supports corporate transactions, including M&A deals, asset purchase sales, and bankruptcy proceedings, and has worked closely with clients in restructuring deals to minimize labor-related risks and to maximize the value of the transaction from a labor perspective, including advising on withdrawal liability issues under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA).

Keahn is a trial-ready litigator who knows how to resolve all forms of labor and employment-related disputes efficiently and effectively.

• Northern California Rising Star, Super Lawyers, 2014-2019

• 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)

• 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