Jessica Rutter

Jessica Rutter joined the firm as Of Counsel in October 2025. She previously served at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as Acting General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel, and Associate General Counsel. During her time in the Office of the General Counsel, she helped design and implement initiatives to make the NLRB as effective as possible in protecting workers’ fundamental rights to organize and collectively bargain. Ms. Rutter also worked to build a comprehensive whole-of-government approach to protecting workers’ rights with other federal, state, and local agencies, including deferred action for labor enforcement (DALE). She previously worked at the NLRB in  headquarters and in the field, where she investigated and prosecuted cases at all levels of the Agency’s administrative processes and in federal court and helped build an immigrant worker protection program.

Ms. Rutter is currently on the immigration team at the AFL-CIO. She has also worked in various capacities for several labor unions and workers’ rights organizations, including as a lawyer, organizer, and strategic campaigner. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a juris doctorate from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). At UCLA, she was the co-director of El Centro Legal Clinics and a Peggy Browning Fellow. She is a co-author of Labor Protest Under the New First Amendment published in the Berkeley Journal of Labor and Employment and has spoken at numerous union convenings, lawyer conferences, and universities.