Ruairi McDonnell is an associate with Feinstein Doyle Payne & Kravec, LLC who practices in ERISA and employee benefits, labor and employment, and class action cases.

Email:  [email protected]

Since joining FDPK, Ruairi has worked primarily on the firm’s retiree health class action cases and is happy to have the opportunity to help protect the rights of working people.  He is admitted to practice law before the courts of Pennsylvania, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ruairi primarily represents retired workers in class actions challenging the reduction or termination of their vested retiree benefits as part of FDPK’s employee benefits practice group. His current employee benefits cases include Reynolds v. Resolute Forest Products, 1:16-cv-48-TAV-CHS (E.D. Tenn.); Newman v. Centrus Energy Corp., 1:15-cv-449-SSB-KLL (S.D. Oh.); Cup v. Ampco-Pittsburgh Corporation, 2:17-cv-189-AJS (W.D. Pa.); Amos v. PPG Industries, Inc., 2:05-cv-70-MHW-TPK (S.D. Oh.); Zino v. Whirlpool, 5:11-cv-1676 (N.D. Oh.); and Comer v. Gerdau Ameristeel, 8:14-cv-607-SDM-EAJ (M.D. Fl.).

Ruairi is also plaintiff’s counsel in the FDPK’s Fair Credit Reporting Act proposed class action Piveronas v. Sodexo, 2:17-cv-446 (W.D. Pa.), and represents individual ERISA plan participants in cases challenging the denial of their benefits in Michener v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. 2;17-cv-218-NBF (W.D. Pa.) and Minnitte v. Prudential Insurance Co., 2:17-cv-121-DSC (W.D. Pa.).

Ruairi received his law degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013, where he was a research editor for the Law Review. Ruairi authored a yet to be published student note on application of the standing and political question doctrines in the case of Al-Aulaqi v. Obama. He was also a recipient of the Donald I. Moritz Scholarship.  Ruairi co-authored The Constitutional Limitations of Public Employee Pension Legislation, Revisited, The Public Lawyer, Summer 2017 (with William T. Payne, Esq. and Joel R. Hurt, Esq.)

During law school Ruairi worked as a research assistant to Professor Arthur Hellman, as a legal intern for the Allegheny County Board of Property Assessment Appeals and as a researcher and writer for a plaintiffs’ attorney specializing in employment law and civil rights.

Ruairi grew up in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania and currently lives in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh.