Meg Thering

Meg Thering is a partner in Goodwin’s Employment practice. She provides clients with practical advice to help them hire, retain, incentivize, and promote the employees they need for their businesses to thrive.

Meg advises employers on all aspects of the employment relationship, including hiring, background checks, classification, wage and hour compliance, restrictive covenants, protection of trade secrets, global mobility, pay equity, retention, workplace investigations, leaves of absence, performance management, responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, terminations, and reductions in force. She works with clients to develop and create programs and processes that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. She also helps employers prevent - and respond to - harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims.

Meg drafts a multitude of employment-related documents, including offer letters, employment agreements, severance agreements, employee handbooks, global mobility policies, and policies relating to sabbaticals and leaves of absence. She also helps clients implement a variety of HR practices and processes, including those relating to background checks, contingent workers, classification of employees as exempt versus non-exempt, and performance management.

Meg regularly creates and provides engaging, interactive, and effective training to managers, HR professionals, and employees on preventing harassment and discrimination in the workplace, implicit bias, microaggressions, performance management, protecting trade secrets, and managing leaves of absence and reasonable accommodations.

She also counsels clients on employment law matters in corporate transactions, including via employment law due diligence and negotiating purchase agreements and related deal documents. In addition, Meg has experience litigating cases in state and federal courts, arbitral tribunals, and administrative agencies, as well as representing clients in government audits.

Meg’s experience has included:

• Successfully obtaining summary judgment for defendant client in wage and hour collective action in SDNY in case in which plaintiffs alleged misclassification as independent contractors*
• Successfully defeating motion for class certification in wage and hour case in the SDNY* 
• Successful representation of clients in EDD audits relating to misclassification of workers as independent contractors*

*Denotes experience prior to joining Goodwin.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Meg served as lead employment counsel at Motive (formerly known as KeepTruckin), an AI focused fleet management technology company valued at $2.85 billion as of its recent Series F financing. In this role, Meg was the sole employment lawyer for a rapidly growing SaaS company that grew from approximately 2,000 employees in three countries when she joined to approximately 4,000 employees in six countries when she left. Meg also served as the interim head of legal and the vice president of human resources at various points during her tenure at Motive.

Before joining Motive, Meg spent over a decade working as an associate in the employment practices of major law firms in Palo Alto, New York, and Los Angeles.

One of Meg’s passions is her pro bono work, representing immigrants (mostly children) from Central and South America in Immigration Court and in matters with USCIS and the Asylum Office. She volunteers with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, and she previously volunteered with the Safe Passage Project in New York. Her pro bono work includes special immigrant juvenile status, T-visa, TPS, parole in place, and asylum cases.

When she worked in New York City, Meg served as the secretary of the New York City Labor and Employment Relations Association.

Meg has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America for her work in Employment Law - Individuals in 2024.

Meg was named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers numerous times. In 2019, she was named Advocate of the Year by Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto.

Meg has spoken at a number of seminars, including most recently:

• Moderator, “Crisis Management – Round Table Discussion,” 2023 TechGC First-Time GC Summit, March 3, 2023
• Speaker, “Reductions in Force,” Dartmouth Lawyers Association Annual CLE & Ski Meeting 2023, February 23, 2023
• Speaker, “There’s a Leave for That?!?,” 2023 Goodwin CLE Day Webinar Series, January 19, 2023
• Speaker, “Defining the Relationship: The Ongoing Pressure on Firms to Classify Contract Workers,” UC Hastings Business Law Journal Symposium (2022)
• Speaker, Hastings Journal on Gender and the Law and Race and Poverty Law Journal Spring Symposium (2022)

Some of Meg’s publications include:

• Co-author, “California Expands Pay Data Reporting Obligations for Large Employers,” Goodwin Client Alert, November 10, 2022
• Co-author, “New California Pay Transparency Law Expands Requirement to Disclose Pay Ranges,” Goodwin Client Alert, November 3, 2022
• Co-Author, “California Court Rejects Alleged Joint Employers ‘It Wasn’t Me’ Defense to Worker Misclassification Claims,” Employee Benefit Plan Review (2015)
• Co-Author, “Apple Class Certification Will Affect All Tech Companies,” Employment Law 360 (2014)
• Co-Author, “The Administrative Exemption from Overtime Pay Continues to Plague Employers: Is There a Cure,” Thomson Reuters News & Insights (2012)
• Co-Author, “The Franchised Business and the FLSA,” FLSA Legal Insider (2011)
• Co-Author, “DHS Targets Employers That Hire Unauthorized Workers,” The National Law Journal (2011)
• Co-Author, “Pregnancy Disability Rights to Become More Generous?,” Daily Journal (2011)
• Co-Author, “Post-Acute Care Handbook: Regulatory, Risk, and Compliance Issues,” The American Health Lawyers Association