Pete Winebrake

Pete Winebrake is the founder and managing partner of Winebrake & Santillo, LLC. He has litigated hundreds of employment rights lawsuits in courts throughout the United States and has recovered many millions of dollars for his hard-working clients and their families.

Pete’s individual lawsuits tend to be filed in the federal courts of Pennsylvania. However, his class and collective action lawsuits have been successfully resolved in courts throughout the United States.

In addition to his extensive trial court practice, Pete has argued cases at the federal and state appellate courts that have resulted in landmark opinions advancing the rights of workers.  For example, in Heimbach v. Amazon.com, Inc., 255 A.3d 191 (Pa. 2021), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act’s conception of compensable work hours extends well behind the confines of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.  Meanwhile, in Knepper v. Rite Aid Corp., 675 F.3d 249 (3d Cir. 2012), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the right of workers to simultaneously pursue state law class action claims and federal law collective action claims in the same lawsuit.

Pete has made presentations as a guest lecturer at various at various educational institutions, including the law schools at Vanderbilt University, Temple University, and Drexel University, and at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.  Pete also has lectured at CLE programs sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law; the Pennsylvania Bar Institute; the Workplace Injury Litigation Group (WILG); the Ohio Association of Justice; the American Association of Justice (AAJ); National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA); the American Law Institute (ALI); and the Lackawanna County (PA) Bar Association.  In June 2919, Pete testified at the United States House of Representatives regarding federal overtime law at a hearing conducted by the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Committee on Education and Labor.

Pete dedicates substantial time to pro bono activities.  He is a longstanding mediator with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania’s mediation program.  In the federal and state appellate courts, he has drafted amicus curiae briefs on behalf of many worker’s rights organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the National Employment Lawyers Association, the National Employment Law Project, the Economic Policy Institute, and Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.