Maureen M. Duffy Partner 510-419-2257 mduffy@donahue.com Download vCard LinkedIn

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Maureen Duffy is a partner and a Co-Chair of the Employment Practice Group. She has over 20 years of significant, sophisticated and, most importantly, “hands-on” experience providing both U.S. domestic and international employment and privacy advice and counsel to all levels of management. She brings a practical, problem-solving orientation to her work in counseling, negotiations, arbitrations, litigation, and mediation.

Maureen regularly represents clients in hi-tech, health care, education, retail, and other fields in all aspects of employment and privacy law. Her litigation experience includes defending employers ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies against individual lawsuits, as well as multi-party and collective actions involving complex employment law claims.

She regularly counsels her clients on preventive employment and privacy policies and practices involving all areas of federal, state, and local employment and privacy law, including recruiting and hiring, leaves of absence, employee handbooks, discipline and termination, workforce reductions, discrimination and harassment, reasonable accommodation, and wage and hour compliance. Her expertise includes working with employers to develop (and update) a solid foundation of employment and privacy policies and practices from which to grow and meet their unique goals, all while reducing the risk of litigation.

Maureen also provides education and training programs for all levels of management on a wide range of employment and privacy topics, including leave management, harassment and bullying prevention, discrimination, retaliation, discipline, disability law, privacy law, internal investigations, and marijuana in the workplace.

Before joining Donahue Fitzgerald, Maureen worked as employment counsel with national and international firms, as well as in-house for Fortune 50, hi-tech and financial services companies in the Bay Area and New York City.

Maureen clerked for the Honorable Peter A. Nowinski of the United States District Court, Eastern District of California, from 1994 to ­1995.

Professional & Community Affiliations

  • Member, Labor & Employment, and International Law, California Lawyers Association
  • Member, Labor and Employment Law, American Bar Association
  • Member, Women's Bar Association of Illinois

Past Speaking Engagements

  • Employee Wages: Administration of Caps, Freezes, Reductions and Furloughs, Lorman Education Services seminar, July 31, 2019