Perkins Coie has made a hire in its San Francisco office for the second time this week with the addition of Heather Sager, a former chair of Vedder Price's employment class action group.

Sager joined Perkins Coie's San Francisco office Monday, the same day the Seattle-based firm brought on Sarah Piepmeier, who previously served as one of the leaders of Kirkland & Ellis' Bay Area patent litigation practice. The firm did not announce Sager's hire until Tuesday.

"It's a great opportunity to further grow Perkins's labor and employment presence in California," Sager said. "I'm very growth-oriented and excited about helping the firm deepen its connections with its existing clients within the tech community here in the labor and employment practice area."

Sager's practice focuses on management-side labor and employment law, including wage and hour, wrongful termination, harassment and discrimination cases before state and federal courts and administrative agencies. Some of the matters Sager has been working on include sexual harassment cases and contractor misclassification issues.

Sager noted that she is one of five new attorneys Perkins Coie has recently added to its San Francisco office, including two partners and three associates, and that four of those five attorneys are women. "That sort of eye towards inclusion and diversity and representation is really something that I value," Sager said.

Sager was one of the founding partners of Chicago-based Vedder Price's San Francisco office when the firm set up shop there in 2013. Before that, she practiced at Drinker Biddle & Reath for six years in San Francisco, and at California labor and employment firm Carothers DiSante & Freudenberger for the six years prior to Drinker Biddle.

Sager said her clients "have all been very excited" to transition to Perkins Coie because of the firm's national footprint and the depth of its labor and employment practice. Sager's move to Perkins Coie was brokered by legal recruiter Larry Watanabe.

"For Perkins, particularly in the Bay Area, their labor and employment service is very strong, because Perkins has such a strong footprint in the tech and emerging markets community," she said.

That's the segment that really needs some guidance in the labor and employment realm, Sager continued, because the founders of these new companies don't always have the same type of traditional business experience dealing with labor and employment problems.

"Employers across the country and in California, in particular, continue to face challenges related to the #MeToo movement, the gig economy, discrimination and wrongful termination matters, and Heather has deep experience counseling clients in all these areas," Ann Marie Painter, chair of Perkins Coie's labor and employment practice, said in a statement.

Sager is the fourth labor and employment partner to join the firm in the past two months. Perkins Coie said it currently has more than 125 attorneys and professional staff working out of the firm's San Francisco office on Howard Street.

Vedder Price, an Am Law 200 firm with about 300 lawyers, declined to comment on Sager's departure.

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