Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP

Focus and practice areas

The firm works entirely in employment law, and it takes cases from both sides of that field. It represents employees who believe an employer broke the law, and it also counsels employers who want to stay within it. That two-sided view shapes how the firm approaches a case, because it has argued both positions. Most of its reported wins come from representing employees, and that is the side its published case results describe.

The named practice areas cover job discrimination, sexual harassment, unlawful wage and break practices, whistleblower retaliation, equal pay, employee misclassification, severance agreements, and class actions. The firm's own materials add disability accommodation, privacy rights, family and medical leave, and breach of employment contracts. It also advises employees on employment agreements, non-disclosure and non-solicitation agreements, and severance packages.

A large share of its work covers wage and hour law. These claims ask whether workers received the pay and the breaks that California law requires. Many reach the firm as class actions, where one employee stands in for a group with the same complaint. The firm also handles single-plaintiff matters, such as a harassment or retaliation claim brought by one worker. Equal pay and misclassification claims connect to that wage work, because all of them turn on how a company classifies and pays its staff.

The partners named on the site

Three partners give the firm its name: Peter Rukin, John Hyland, and Jessica Riggin. Each one litigates, and their backgrounds cover both the employee side and the employer side of the courtroom.

Peter Rukin

Peter Rukin handles complex litigation in employment, wage and hour, and business disputes. His practice includes class action wage and hour claims and equal employment opportunity claims. He earned his B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1988 and his law degree from New York University School of Law in 1991. That mix of business litigation and wage claims fits a firm that runs large group cases against employers.

John Hyland

John Hyland practices in employment law. Before joining the firm, he was Of Counsel at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in that firm's San Francisco office. There he advised and represented companies in state and federal court, in matters that involved wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, disability law, employee privacy, and employee leaves. That defense-side history gives him a close view of how employers build their own cases.

Jessica Riggin

Jessica Riggin litigates individual and class action cases on behalf of employees. Her claims include wage and hour and overtime violations, sexual harassment, whistleblower and retaliation matters, and discrimination and equal pay. She also advises executives and professionals before any litigation starts, at the point where a contract or a severance offer is still on the table.

What the record shows

The firm points to three reported results from its own case history. In an independent contractor misclassification case involving SuperShuttle, it reports a $12 million settlement. In a wage and break class action against Farmers Insurance Exchange, it reports a $4.9 million resolution. In a harassment, retaliation, and wage matter, it reports more than $1.5 million recovered. A settlement of that size usually reflects a class of many workers, each owed a smaller amount that adds up across the group. These are the figures the firm publishes, and they cover both large group cases and single-client claims.

The firm also states that its attorneys hold more than 75 years of collective experience, and it is AV rated by the Martindale-Hubbell peer review system. AV is the strongest tier in that peer rating system, based on other lawyers' reviews of legal ability and ethics. The site does not state a founding year, and the 75-year figure is the firm's own measure of combined time in practice. As a reviewer, I read an AV rating as feedback from other lawyers, which is why it carries weight beyond a firm's own words.

How the firm handles a dispute

The firm tries to resolve disputes through negotiation, mediation, and arbitration when that route is open. It moves to litigation when a case cannot be settled. The order matters: the firm looks for a resolution first and treats the courtroom as the step it takes when talks fail.

Employment class actions follow a set path, and knowing it helps explain the results above. A named plaintiff files on behalf of a group, then the court decides whether to certify the class. The parties exchange records on pay, hours, and job duties. Misclassification claims, like the SuperShuttle matter, turn on whether workers labeled as contractors meet the legal test for employees. Wage and break claims, like the Farmers Insurance matter, turn on time records and written company policy. If the court certifies the class, the case usually moves toward a negotiated settlement, since a trial across hundreds of workers carries risk for both sides.That pattern helps explain why settlements account for the upper end of the firm's reported outcomes by value.

Single-plaintiff cases run differently. A harassment or retaliation claim depends on what one person experienced and what witnesses and documents can confirm. In my opinion, this is where the firm's willingness to mediate matters most, since many employees prefer a private resolution to a public trial. The choice of forum, a courtroom or an arbitration, often shapes how long a case takes and how much of it stays confidential.

Advice before a claim

Much of employment law happens before anyone files a case. The counseling side of the firm, on contracts and severance, works in that early window. A severance negotiation weighs the money on offer against the rights a worker gives up, such as the right to sue or to speak about the job publicly. Non-disclosure and non-solicitation terms set what an employee can say and where they can work next. Reading those terms early can shape what any later dispute looks like, and it can settle a matter quietly before a courtroom enters the picture.

Offices and reach

The firm keeps offices in San Francisco and Oakland, which puts it on both sides of San Francisco Bay. That footprint fits the firm's focus on California employment law, where state rules on wages, breaks, and leave often go further than federal law. The two locations let the firm meet clients on either side of the bay without a long trip. Employees and executives across the Bay Area can reach the firm at either office.

The Bay Area gives a firm like this a wide pool of workers in technology, transportation, insurance, and services, and those sectors produce many wage and misclassification disputes. The partners' mix of employee-side and defense-side experience lets the firm read a claim from either direction before it files. The firm also lists social profiles on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn for anyone who wants to follow its updates.