Brett’s practice focuses on employment class actions, wage and hour class and collective actions, complex public accommodations litigation, and state and federal agency pattern or practice actions. For more than thirty years, Michael Brett Burns has represented leading employers and management, particularly in the retail industry, in a wide range of employment and public accommodations-related matters. Brett, a partner in the labor and employment practice at Hunton Andrews Kurth, focuses on complex litigation matters, and regularly defends clients in employment class actions, wage and hour class, collective, and representative actions, public accommodations litigation, and federal agency pattern or practice matters (including lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and state attorneys general).

Brett has led the defense teams for more than 120 class, collective, representative, and pattern or practice actions, tried complex collective actions and pattern or practice cases to juries, and secured verdicts for clients in multiple single-plaintiff jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations.

In addition to his litigation and arbitration practice, Brett counsels clients on litigation avoidance strategies and on creative solutions for complicated employment, wage and hour, and public accommodation law challenges. He has earned national recognition for his work from Chambers USA (2021 to present), Benchmark Litigation (2018 to present), Legal 500 US (2021 to present), the California Daily Journal (2021 “Top Labor & Employment Lawyers”), and others.  He is a member of the American Employment Law Council and several other legal organizations. 

Bar Admissions

Education
JD, The University of Texas School of Law, Member and Associate Editor, Texas Law Review, 1991

BS, Texas A&M University, 1988

• Representing a national retailer client in a nationwide investigation involving claims alleging that the use of criminal background checks during the hiring process has a disparate impact on minority applicants (California, New York, Texas).
• Defending a national movie exhibitor client in a nationwide ADA pattern or practice pubic accessibility case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice presenting challenges to new architectural designs (Ninth Circuit and Central District of California).
• Representing a national casual dining client in a nationwide FLSA collective action presenting first impression "tip pooling" wage claims (Fifth Circuit and Southern District of Texas). 
• Defending multiple national movie theater clients in statewide class, multi-plaintiff, and agency pattern and practice public accessibility actions seeking to mandate new captioning and narrative description technologies, and challenging new architectural designs (Arizona, California, Texas, Washington).
• Representing multiple statewide wage and hour class and collective actions against national retailer, casual dining, manufacturing, and hospitality clients presenting meal period, rest break, manager misclassification, off-the-clock, tip pooling, and other claims (Central District of California, Southern District of California, California Supreme Court, California Court of Appeal, multiple California Superior Courts (Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego), Middle District of Florida, and Southern District of Florida).
• Representing a national retailer client in a nationwide Title VII pattern or practice case filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission presenting race and national origin discrimination and harassment claims (District of Arizona).
• Defending a national movie exhibitor client in a multi-plaintiff Title VII case presenting sex discrimination, sex harassment, and religious harassment claims (District of Utah).
• Managing national and regional dockets of employment, wage and hour, and public accessibility cases for national retailer, casual dining, and movie exhibitor clients (Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Washington, D.C.).
• Defending a national movie exhibitor client in a nationwide ADA pattern or practice pubic accessibility case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice presenting challenges to new architectural designs (Sixth Circuit and Northern District of Ohio).

• Hunton Retail Law Resource: Analysis and Insight in Retail Law

  By M. Burns |November 2020

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