Catherine Fisk teaches Employment Law, Labor Law, Civil Procedure, and Understanding the U.S. Legal Profession. She is a Faculty Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Work and the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.
Professor Fisk is the author of several books. Her first, Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009, 2014), won prizes from the American Society for Legal History and the American Historical Association. In her next book, Writing for Hire: Unions, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue (Harvard University Press, 2016), Fisk explored the law and norms of credit and compensation for writing, contrasting the writer-protective rules negotiated by unionized writers in film and TV with far less protective norms developed in non-union advertising. Fisk is the co-author of four books for use in law school and legal studies classes: Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace (3d ed. 2019), The Legal Profession: Ethics in Contemporary Practice (2d ed. 2019), What Lawyers Do: Understanding the Many American Legal Practices (2020), and Labor Law Stories (2005). Her next book will examine the professional identities of lawyers who represented activist, multi-racial, and politically progressive unions in the mid-twentieth century.
Fisk’s scholarship has appeared in many leading law reviews. Her recent works explore innovative ways to improve labor standards, labor and social movement lawyering, free speech at and about work, and reforming police labor relations.
Professor Fisk’s current public service and pro bono legal work includes filing amicus briefs on various labor and employment law issues, service on the Advisory Board of the Berkeley Labor Center, the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History and the boards of directors of two Bay Area workers’ rights nonprofits, and occasional service as an arbitrator under collectively bargained labor contracts. Before joining the Berkeley faculty in 2017, she was on the law faculties at UC Irvine, Duke University, the University of Southern California, and Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. Prior to entering academia, Fisk practiced civil appellate litigation and union-side labor law in Washington, D.C., and clerked on the Ninth Circuit. Fisk received an AB summa cum laude from Princeton University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was elected to Order of the Coif.
Education
AB, Princeton University (1983)
JD, University of California, Berkeley (1986)
LLM, University of Wisconsin (1995)
Catherine Laura Fisk is teaching the following courses in Spring 2025:
• 210 sec. 004 - Legal Profession
• 227 sec. 001 - Labor Law
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2024 | 200F sec. 002 | Civil Procedure |
|---|
An Afghan refugee was shot and killed while driving for Uber in SF. His family is demanding better.
Professor Catherine Fisk comments on the liability of Uber in the shooting death of a driver in San Francisco under Prop 22, which has been deemed unconstitutional, but remains in effect
Planned Parenthood L.A. was hacked. What it means, and what you can do
Professor Catherine Fisk, in light of the recent hacking of Planned Parenthood, inputs that although some women might be worried about their jobs, there are laws that protect employees from retaliation for engaging in lawful off-duty behavior
Op-Ed: At the Academy Museum, Hollywood’s own labor history is left unexamined
Professor Catherine Fisk says filmmaking was the original gig economy, and reflecting on how the movie business dealt with solving problems of pay and portable benefits provides lessons for today
Farmworkers may be able to vote at home in union elections
Professor Catherine Fisk discusses a California bill that would give farmworkers more ways to vote in union elections
Prop. 22 is ruled unconstitutional: What it means, how apps reacted and what happens next
Professor Catherine Fisk says the fight over Prop 22 isn’t over – after consideration by the state court of appeals, it will eventually be decided by the California Supreme Court
Californians Face Higher Rideshare Bill on Prop 22 Reversal
Professor Catherine Fisk says the next fight over Prop 22 will be about whether it will remain in place or if companies’ exemption will be rescinded while the appeal process plays out
Corporations like Amazon pay big bucks for “union avoidance” — and it all happens in the dark
Professor Catherine Fisk says law has essentially incentivized companies to walk right up to the line of threatening their workforce
Supreme Court ruling for farmers against organized labor has broad implications
Professor Catherine Fisk says the Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of union organizers to enter the private property of growers in order to reach farmworkers in California will set a precedent for more challenges to unions and expand property owners’ rights, no matter the industry
Grubhub Driver’s Appeal Tackles Unsolved California Gig Issues
Professor Catherine Fisk says frivolous suits are the price we all pay for having legal rights and a court system to enforce them
Back to the office? The complaints and lawsuits are already trickling in
Professor Catherine Fisk says employment laws were developed with the annual flu in mind, not a global pandemic
Opposing the PRO Act, Uber and Other Gig Companies Spend Over $1 Million Lobbying Congress
Professor Catherine Fisk discusses the PRO Act and says it would change is whether independent contractors have the right to form a union and bargain collectively
Amazon Work Rules Govern Tweets, Body Odor of Contract Drivers
Professor Catherine Fisk discusses Amazon’s controlling Delivery Service Provider contract and policies
Some Amazon Drivers Have Had Enough. Can They Unionize?
Professor Catherine Fisk explains the legal complexities of who can unionize
From Economics to History, Recent Books Showcase Depth and Breadth of Faculty Scholarship
Fifteen books published in 2019 and 2020 were highlighted at a recent event, including work by Ian Haney López, Franklin Zimring, and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
PRO Act, called ‘most important labor legislation in several generations,’ passes House
Professor Catherine Fisk explains that the PRO Act applies only to rights to unionize and bargain collectively and says freelancers would have no competitive advantage from one state to another
Symposium Experts Call for Furthering Genuine Police Reform and Targeting Labor Agreements
The meeting drew from the legal, academic, and policy realms to discuss how to make police more accountable.
What Google’s Union Can Do Now and What It Needs to Do Next
Professor Catherine Fisk says Google employees’ union’s relatively low numbers should be expected, if not embraced, as a start
At a Critical Juncture, New Berkeley Law Center Emphasizes Workers’ Rights
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to crush workers, especially the lowest earners, the Center for Law and Work puts them in the spotlight.
Democrats’ Coming Civil War Over Police Unions
Professor Catherine Fisk explains why qualified immunity creates a too high a bar for victims of police violence
Like many US workers, Trump staff has little recourse if asked to work alongside sick colleagues
Professor Catherine Fisk says OSHA may feel themselves powerless to protect West Wing workers from exposure to the virus by the president