Shareholder

Lisl Soto

Lisl Soto (née Duncan) is a shareholder in the Los Angeles office of Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld. Ms. Soto represents unions in all aspects of labor and employment law. Through her practice, Ms. Soto endeavors to dedicate her legal career to social justice and to positively impacting the lives of working people.

Ms. Soto handles arbitrations, collective bargaining agreement negotiations, and regularly practices before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in representation matters and unfair labor practice proceedings. Ms. Soto also serves as general counsel to several multiemployer trust funds and labor management cooperation committees. Additionally, Ms. Soto delivers trainings to clients covering a broad variety of topics, including grievance processing, contract negotiations, wage-and-hour law, anti-harassment and anti-discrimination, and forms of protected leave.

Ms. Soto’s practice focuses extensively on wage-and-hour litigation. She is experienced in all aspects of class-action litigation, including assembly of classes, discovery covering large groups of similarly situated employees, and motions for class certification. Ms. Soto has acted as the primary plaintiffs’ attorney on numerous wage-and-hour class action lawsuits in the California counties of Alameda, Fresno, Kings, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sacramento and Solano, as well as in federal court. 

Ms. Soto earned her juris doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law after receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in English and minored in Peace & Conflict Studies. While in law school, Ms. Soto worked as a Peggy Browning Fund Fellow with the NLRB Division of Judges, interned for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and clerked with a small firm in Barcelona, Spain. She also served as editor-in-chief of the Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal from 2007-2008, participated in the Workers’ Rights Clinic, Refugee & Human Rights Clinic, and Pilipino American Law Society, and received Hastings’ 3L Class Leader Award in 2008 through a vote of her peers.

Ms. Soto also serves as editor-in-chief of WRR’s Labor Law Updates, which is featured on the firm’s website and distributed to subscribers via email. To subscribe, please send an email to laborlawupdates@unioncounsel.net.

Ms. Soto is licensed to practice law in California.

Notable Accomplishments at WRR

  • Along with others at WRR, Ms. Soto represented employees in Marquez v. City of Long Beach (2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 552, successfully establishing new precedent in California over whether charter cities like the City of Long Beach are required to comply with state minimum wage laws. The Court of Appeal ruled that while charter cities may govern themselves as to matters that are deemed municipal affairs, their authority is limited and must give way to state authority on important issues of statewide concern—in this case, providing California workers with a living wage.

  • In 2018, Ms. Soto presented oral argument before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, successfully representing her international union client in the case Osburn v. Int'l All. of Theatrical Stage Emps., No. 17-55022 (9th Cir. Sep. 4, 2018) over claims brought under section 101(a)(2) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA).

  • In Purple Communications, 361 NLRB No. 126 (Dec. 11, 2014) [overruled by the Trump-era Board in Caesars Entertainment d/b/a/ Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino, 368 NLRB No. 143 (Dec. 17, 2019)], Ms. Soto represented a union client before the NLRB administrative law judge. Purple Communications established that employees could use their work email to communicate about union organizing efforts. The case created a rebuttable presumption that such communications are protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which provides the right to engage in concerted activities in support of union organization and a right to discuss wages, working conditions, and interest in collective organization with coworkers at the employer’s premises. While Purple Communications was overturned by the Trump NLRB, labor advocates predict a future Board will return to the standards set forth in Purple Communications, if not extend them further.

Publications + Presentations

  • AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance (ULA), Mid-Career Lawyering Seminar presenter, December 2021

  • ULA, Diversity, Outreach, Opportunities, and Recruitment Conference, “Union Recognition Elections under the NLRA” Seminar presenter, June 2021

  • 39th Annual Piper Lecture, Chicago-Kent College of Law, April 2017

  • Peggy Browning Fund, Advice for Summer Law Clerks Seminar, regular presenter

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