Leila S. Narvid

Leila represents employers in all areas of labor and employment law. Her practice is divided between serving as day-to-day employment counsel to companies and defending those companies when disputes arise. Clients come to Leila for practical, creative, and efficient advice, and for the judgment that comes from having litigated the disputes that employment decisions can produce.

A substantial part of Leila’s practice is preventive. She serves as outside employment counsel to companies ranging from venture-backed startups to national employers, including businesses in technology and artificial intelligence, health care, manufacturing, and hospitality, as well as nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. She advises on offer letters and executive agreements; arbitration, confidentiality, and inventions assignment agreements; employee handbooks and policies; wage-and-hour classification and pay practices; pay transparency and pay equity; leave administration and the disability accommodation interactive process; performance management and discipline; reductions in force; and executive separations. She counsels multistate employers on compliance across jurisdictions with divergent and rapidly changing requirements, and supports clients through the employment aspects of acquisitions, restructurings, and workforce transitions. She also conducts and oversees workplace investigations, including board-directed investigations involving senior executives.

When matters proceed to litigation, Leila defends employers in wage-and-hour claims, discrimination, sexual harassment, disability accommodation, wrongful termination, retaliation, defamation, and other employment-related torts. She has substantial class, collective, and representative action experience and has successfully defended national employers in actions alleging wage-and-hour violations under federal and state law. She also defends businesses accused of trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition and advises clients on employee mobility. Leila regularly represents employers in proceedings before the EEOC and state civil rights and labor agencies, and in mediation and arbitration, where a significant portion of her matters resolve before suit is filed.

Leila writes and speaks regularly on employment law. Her articles have appeared in The Recorder and the Daily Journal, and she speaks on hiring practices and the Rooney and Mansfield Rules, the #MeToo movement’s impact on sexual harassment claims, and other developing issues in the field. She has taught trial advocacy at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and has served as a guest lecturer at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Outside her practice, Leila collects prints, drawings, and photographs.  She is a member of the Achenbach Graphic Arts Council, the nonprofit that supports the graphic arts collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Before joining Payne & Fears LLP, Leila was an associate at Sideman & Bancroft LLP, where she represented shareholders in corporate squeeze-out litigation and handled contract, partnership, and intra-corporate disputes, as well as unfair competition and legal malpractice matters.