Leo helps employers navigate high-stakes employment disputes and day-to-day workforce challenges with a practical, business-first approach. Based in McGuireWoods’ Los Angeles office, he focuses his practice on defending complex wage and hour class, collective, and representative actions under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), as well as matters involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination. Clients rely on Leo for creative strategy and efficient execution and solutions that align with their operational realities.
Leo represents domestic and international employers across diverse industries, including industrial manufacturing, logistics, education, insurance, aerospace, retail, hotel, restaurant, natural resources, and professional services. Leo has achieved pivotal outcomes at critical stages of litigation, including defeating class certification, securing summary judgment, and negotiating favorable settlements.
Beyond the courtroom, Leo regularly counsels employers on compliance and risk management matters, including wage and hour audits, DLSE audits and investigations, contract negotiations, and the drafting and implementation of arbitration agreements. He has successfully arbitrated individual PAGA claims following Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, achieving outcomes that limited or eliminated representative claims and drove efficient resolution. Leo also advises on employment policies employee handbooks, helping clients minimize risk while strengthening workplace practices.
Working within McGuireWoods’ national platform, Leo collaborates across practices to support clients facing overlapping employment, regulatory, and business issues. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Leo regularly advises domestic companies expanding abroad and international companies navigating the workforce landscape in the United States.
- Successfully defeated class certification in multiple wage and hour class action cases, including in cases involving tens of thousands of proposed class members in the retail, food service, and insurance industries.*
- Obtained summary judgment on behalf of employers in wage and hour and misclassification matters, including on behalf of a class of over 1,100 current and former employees involving an aerospace employer.*
- Secured dismissal of class action and PAGA claims through motions to compel arbitration across multiple matters, successfully defeating a wide range of plaintiff-side challenges to the enforceability of arbitration agreements and elimination of PAGA claims through individual arbitration.*
- Successfully defeated proposed intervenors’ motion to intervene and objections to a proposed PAGA settlement involving a national retail client, demonstrating that the existing plaintiff adequately represented class members’ interests and that the intervenors’ penalty analysis was legally flawed.*
- Successfully argued before the California Court of Appeal and secured affirmance of multiple trial court orders denying class certification.*
- Negotiated and obtained numerous favorable settlements on behalf of employer clients in both class action and individual employment matters.*
*The above matters were handled by Mr. Li prior to joining McGuireWoods LLP.
- Named a “Rising Star,” Law360, 2025
- Named to “Ones to Watch,” Labor and Employment Law – Management, The Best Lawyers in America, 2022-2024
- Named to “Top 40 Under 40 lawyer,” Daily Journal, 2022