Kirill Penteshin

SSDS added Kirill Penteshin as a partner in July 2019. From 2009 to 2019, Mr. Penteshin served as in-house counsel and later General Counsel for UNITE HERE Local 11, the hospitality and food service union in Southern California and Phoenix, Arizona. He was responsible for representing the union and its members in various legal practice areas, including labor law practice before the NLRB, grievance and arbitration proceedings involving both disciplinary and contract interpretation issues, DLSE and DFEH administrative investigations and hearings, and other types of employment litigation. His work also included developing and carrying out legal strategy in support of non-union organizing and contract campaigns.

 

As the head of Local 11's legal department Mr. Penteshin was responsible for overseeing the legal affairs and budget of the union, and for supervising the union's in-house team of staff attorneys. Mr. Penteshin also initiated clinical collaboration and legal externships with a number of law schools in Southern California, including UCLA, UC Irvine, USC, and Loyola.

 

In 2018-19, Mr. Penteshin represented Local 11 in its Los Angeles citywide hotel contract negotiations, which resulted in a dramatic increase in union members' wage and benefit standards.  Mr. Penteshin also represented Local 11 as the Charging Party in the NLRB case Kava Holdings, LLC, et al. d/b/a Hotel Bel-Air, 370 NLRB No. 73 (2021), which resulted in a historic backpay award for over one hundred fifty former employees; he is currently litigating the employer's appeal of the Board's decision before the Ninth Circuit.

 

Since coming to SSDS in 2019, Mr. Penteshin has continued to represent Local 11 and a number of other private sector unions.  As part of this work, he recently assisted in winning representation for a bargaining unit of bike share employees in Los Angeles.

 

In addition to his representation of private sector unions, Mr. Penteshin has also served as counsel for a variety of public sector unions in higher education, medical residency programs, and public utilities, which he has represented in unfair labor practice, unit modification and representation proceedings before PERB, grievance and arbitration matters, and in bargaining with employers, including the University of California.

 

Mr. Penteshin began his defense of workers' rights at Yale Law School, where he participated in clinical advocacy representing low-wage restaurant workers and UAW Region 9A. He has taught a workers rights clinical course at UCLA Law School as an adjunct instructor, and a seminar on employment discrimination and sexual harassment for the LA Trade Tech Labor Studies program.

 

Mr. Penteshin is a native speaker of Russian and fluent in Spanish. He enjoys spending time with his wife and baby son, as well as hiking and strategic board games.