Ms. Margaret Santen Hanrahan is the co-chair of the firm’s Class and Collective Action Practice Group. She focuses her practice on developing winning strategies for the defense of large-scale class and collective actions across the country.
While this typically includes the defense of independent contractor misclassification claims, Ms. Hanrahan also has extensive experience defending class and collective actions involving wage and hour issues of all kinds, systemic gender discrimination claims, and various commercial claims in federal district courts throughout the country, from California to Maine.
Ms. Hanrahan’s experience in the class action area has been repeatedly recognized by her peers in the legal community, resulting in her selection to the Georgia Super Lawyers, Rising Stars list every year since 2012.
In addition to her litigation experience, Ms. Hanrahan also focuses on partnering with her clients to assist with day-to-day counseling issues, covering the gamut of employment issues and implementing legally-defensible workplace policies, focusing on risk management and compliance.
This often includes drafting independent contractor agreements, job descriptions and pay policies; conducting comprehensive wage/hour and wage/payment audits and implementing effective strategies for compliance; and conducting management training.
This also includes implementing successful alternative dispute resolution procedures such as arbitration agreements, developing effective roll-out strategies, successfully compelling claims to arbitration and litigating any challenges to the same, and handling the arbitration proceedings themselves.
Finally, Ms. Hanrahan routinely represents her clients in Department of Labor wage and hour audits and state unemployment tax audits, vigorously defending any resulting litigation.
This also includes handling administrative hearings for class-based unemployment tax appeals against the state Department of Labor or equivalent agency, where Ms. Hanrahan has been successful in multiple jurisdictions in obtaining complete reversal of class-based employee determinations and dismissal of large-scale tax assessments.
Education:
- J.D., cum laude, University of South Carolina, 2004
- B.A., with distinction, University of Virginia, 2000
Admitted to Practice:
- South Carolina
- Georgia
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. District Court, Middle and Northern Districts of Georgia
- U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of Oklahoma
Experience:
- Complete reversal of class-based employee determination findings and dismissal of all class-based tax assessments in each proceeding on behalf of various home health, housecleaning, and construction industry clients;
- Currently lead counsel in nationwide putative class action involving independent contractor misclassification and two other putative class/collective actions challenging independent contractor classification;
- Successfully represented nationwide distributor in putative FLSA collection action;
- Successfully represented several companies in connection with national wage/hour audits by the federal and state Department of Labor; and
- Successfully represented trucking company in multiple unfair labor practice charges and assisted in keeping company union-free.
Professional Activities:
- Atlanta Volunteer Lawyer’s Foundation Board Member
- National Association of Women Lawyers
- Atlanta Bar Association
- Trinity Community Ministries (Board Member)
- Volunteer for Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta
Cost
Rate : $$$