Education

UCLA School of Law (J.D., Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, 2005)

University of Notre Dame (B.S., magna cum laude, Physics, Philosophy, 2000)

Experience

Ryan Spillers joined the firm out of law school in 2005, and became a shareholder in 2010.  His practice areas include traditional labor law, employment law, and non-profit corporate law.

Mr. Spillers counsels labor unions in a variety of industries, including health care, manufacturing, construction, and entertainment.  He has represented union clients in state and federal court, before administrative agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Public Employment Relations Board, in arbitrations, and at the bargaining table.

In several regions of the National Labor Relations Board, and before the Board itself and its General Counsel, Mr. Spillers has handled countless unfair labor practice proceedings for unions in a broad spectrum of contexts, resulting in important victories for unions and their members.  Mr. Spillers has successfully represented unions in scores of representation proceedings, including pre-election and post-election proceedings at the Region and before the NLRB in Washington, D.C.  He has trained union representatives and other worker advocates regarding all aspects of the Board’s changing representation and unfair labor practice rules and procedures.

Mr. Spillers also has experience representing individual workers with their wage and hour claims in state and federal court and before the California Department of Industrial Relations’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.  As part of his non-profit corporate law practice, Mr. Spillers has formed 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations and advises them on corporate governance matters.  Mr. Spillers has also represented union and worker clients with their bankruptcy claims for unpaid wages and other debts.

Notable projects on which Mr. Spillers has worked include serving as lead local counsel of a campaign to unionize carwash workers in the Los Angeles area, resulting in over forty new bargaining units; recovering over $6.68 million for oil refinery workers who were wrongfully denied bonuses for going on strike; and securing a Gissel bargaining order when an employer re-checked employees’ work authorization documentation and terminated a union activist for alleged immigration-related reasons on the eve of a union representation election.  Through these and other projects at Gilbert & Sackman, as well as through his experience in law school as a law clerk for Sweatshop Watch and the Garment Worker Center, Mr. Spillers has gained extensive experience representing immigrant workers in wage and hour and labor law matters.  Mr. Spillers speaks Spanish.

Mr. Spillers received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2000, where he graduated magna cum laude as a Physics major with a second major in Philosophy. He received his law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2005, where he completed the Program in Public Interest Law and Policy.

Memberships

• California State Bar, Labor and Employment Law Section

• Los Angeles County Bar Association

• National Lawyers’ Guild