What Strippers Can Teach Uber

The on-demand industry says it’s turned our concept of work upside down. But one attorney thinks we’ve been here before — again, and again, and again.

By Lauren Smiley

Shannon Liss-Riordan rolls a small black suitcase out of the ugly federal courthouse in San Francisco. She’s smiling, just a fraction. No wonder: She just won a little victory against Uber.

Minutes earlier, in an oak-paneled courtroom 17 floors above the city’s streets, she tried to cut in — “May I? May I?” — as Uber’s attorney bobbed and weaved and attempted to persuade the judge that he should slow down the case that Liss-Riordan is working.

The judge, Edward Chen, who had already declared that the case was heading to a jury trial, finally tired of Uber’s pleas and brusquely cut the company’s lawyer short. “We’re moving forward,” he declared. Prepare for a next round of hearings in August — like it or not.

Why, exactly, does a $40 billion company built on efficiency want to draw out these legal wranglings as long as bureaucracy will allow? Maybe it’s because this suit presents a greater threat to Uber’s future than any angry city government or riled-up taxi union. Liss-Riordan wants Uber to turn its thousands of drivers into…