Altshuler Berzon LLP is delighted to announce that Jonah J. Lalas will join the firm as a partner effective September 25, 2024. Jonah is a leading young attorney in the union labor bar who comes to the firm with substantial arbitration, bargaining, and litigation experience. He will be based in Los Angeles.
Jonah was most recently a partner at a Southern California union-side labor law firm. His recent victories include defeating a company’s attempt in the Ninth Circuit to undo an NLRB order finding it committed an unfair labor practice by unilaterally ceasing union dues checkoff; and prevailing over an employer’s effort to enjoin sugar factory workers from engaging in an unfair labor practice strike. See National Labor Relations Board v. Valley Health System, LLC, 93 F.4th 1115 (9th Cir. 2024); Spreckels Sugar Company, Inc. v. United Food & Com. Workers, Local 135, AFL-CIO, CLC, 669 F. Supp. 3d 967 (S.D. Cal. 2023). Jonah regularly represents unions in arbitrations, proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, and first contract negotiations. Jonah is also a frequent contributor to the public discourse about the labor movement and has published opinion pieces in Newsweek, The Hill, Truthout, and The Progressive. He has also presented on a number of legal topics at conferences conducted by the AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance, the California Teachers Association, the IUPAT Professionals Forum & Finishing Industries Forum, and the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Labor and Employment Law Section.
Jonah graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he was an editor on the Berkeley Journal for Employment and Labor Law and worked for several Bay Area labor law firms, including Altshuler Berzon LLP. He then clerked for three federal judges: Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins (N.D. Cal.), Chief Judge Dolly M. Gee (C.D. Cal.), and Judge Raymond C. Fisher (9th Circuit).
Jonah began his career in the labor movement more than 20 years ago as a union organizer with a healthcare local of the Service Employees International Union, where he organized public and private sector workers in California, Texas, Nevada, and Arizona. In Texas, he became the organizing director of a public sector local and led a multifaceted, multi-year campaign to organize 13,000 City of Houston employees. Coordinating with community groups, clergy, and elected officials, the organizing effort resulted in a historic first contract that included improved wages and benefits, and a strengthened voice on the job for city employees. The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) recognized the work that Jonah and his colleagues accomplished with the Philip Vera Cruz Award, given to outstanding AAPI union organizers whose work honors the memory of Filipino labor leader and farmworker Philip Vera Cruz.
Jonah looks forward to continuing to combine his legal skills with those he honed as a labor leader to achieve future victories for workers and their representatives throughout California and the nation. Altshuler Berzon LLP is confident that, with the addition of Jonah, the firm will be increasingly well-positioned to continue providing excellent legal representation to its clients. Welcome, Jonah!