Michael Morrison has dedicated his entire legal career to vindicating constitutional and statutory rights of individuals. Michael’s practice areas include class actions and other complex litigation, with a particular focus on labor and employment law, civil rights, constitutional law, appellate law and sexual abuse cases.
Michael argued and briefed four cases resulting in published decisions: Macias v. County of Los Angeles (2006) 144 Cal. App. 4th 313; Blankenhorn v. City of Orange (9th Cir. 2007) 485 F.3d 463; Cinquegrani v. Department of Motor Vehicles (2006) 163 Cal. App. 4th 741; and Dalkilic v. Titan Corp. (S.D. Cal. 2007) 516 F. Supp. 2d 1177. He is a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar, assisted in drafting numerous briefs and petitions to that court, and co-authored the merits brief in Muehler v. Mena (2005) 544 U.S. 93.
Michael has extensive class action experience and success. Michael was a member of the plaintiff steering committee in the coordinated action “The Clergy Cases,” where a settlement exceeding $660 million was reached against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on behalf of hundreds of sexual abuse victims. As class counsel, Michael handled the following notable settlements: Shoff v. AT&T (mis-classification wage and hour case resulting in $16 million settlement); Doyle v. AT&T (mis-classification wage and hour case resulting in $10.5 million settlement); Waters v. AT&T (mis-classification wage and hour case resulting in $17 million settlement); Lita v. Bunim-Murray (overtime case against reality television company resulting in $5 million settlement); Avery v. OCTA, TCA (constitutional class action against toll road agencies resulting in over $40 million in economic benefit to class members and sweeping injunctive relief); and Morrison, et al. v. Six Flags Theme Park, Inc. (race and ethnic discrimination case resulting in settlement over $5 million).
Michael obtained his J.D. in 1999 from UCLA School of Law, where he taught civil rights to UCLA undergraduates and served, during his second year, as the special assistant to the Honorable Cruz Reynoso at the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Michael obtained his B.A., magna cum laude, in political science in 1996 from the University of California at San Diego.
