Silicon Valley Employment Lawyer Leaves Jones Day for Coblentz
Fred Alvarez has returned to San Francisco to join Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass.
January 24, 2019 at 04:07 PM
3 minute read
Fred Alvarez of Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass. Courtesy photo
Veteran employment attorney Fred Alvarez is moving back into San Francisco and refocusing his practice, as he leaves Jones Day to join Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass.
“I have a lot of friends here on the plaintiff side and the defense side, and the government side,” said Alvarez. “I just thought it would be fun to come back and be close to everybody.”
He started working at Coblentz in early January, bringing him back to the city after more than two decades in Palo Alto.
“This is a really cutting-edge legal community for employment law,” Alvarez said of San Francisco. “I am an employment lawyer, so I am advising those companies who are trying to disrupt how things get done as they build these new businesses, so it is a very intriguing and engaging legal community for employment law issues.”
Alvarez, a former U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioner, led the employment practices of two major law firms before joining Jones Day in 2013. He headed up the employment litigation practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he practiced for over 16 years, and before that, Alvarez led the employment practice at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, now known as Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman after its 2005 merger.
“At this stage of my career, I have been practicing employment law for about 40 years, I have done a lot of litigation over that amount of time,” Alvarez said, regarding his move to Coblentz. “Over the last few years, I've felt more interested in doing more independent employment law, doing investigations, representing people in investigations, doing strategic advice, giving second opinions.”
Alvarez currently focuses much of his practice on providing strategic and compliance advice, conducting sensitive internal investigations and serving as a jointly appointed monitor or special master of class action decrees, his new firm said.
He began his career as a trial attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in 1976, then moved to New Mexico in 1980 to serve as a law clerk to Chief Justice LaFel Oman of the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Before returning to San Francisco in 1990, Alvarez served as assistant secretary of labor for the U.S. Department of Labor, where he managed the Wage and Hour Division and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. He also served as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“Fred is a titan in the employment world and in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley communities,” Clifford Yin, a partner and chairman of the litigation practice at Coblentz, said in a statement.
Alvarez was the president of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2000. He said most of his clients will likely stay with Jones Day, as he intends to focus his practice on investigations at Coblentz.
Jones Day did not respond to request for comment regarding Alvarez's departure.
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