Honoree: Keith Chapman

General Counsel
Instawork
Rutgers Law School

Keith Chapman is general counsel for Instawork, the leading flexible work platform for hourly workers across the country. His background includes a blend of practical, in-house savvy guiding of marketplace companies through hypergrowth, law firm training, and governmental enforcement experience. From early human rights advocacy to the future of work, Chapman has worked to build systems that create economic opportunity for workers while protecting their basic rights and dignity at each stage of his career. At Instawork, Chapman manages the company’s legal function, coordinating regulatory compliance efforts, facilitating corporate and M&A activity, managing litigation, growing public policy, and overseeing employment matters, product, and cross-departmental trust & safety efforts.

Before joining Instawork’s leadership team, Chapman expanded the legal function at Postmates Inc. and helped transition the delivery network company through its acquisition by Uber Technologies, Inc. At Postmates, Chapman served as associate general counsel, where he led legal teams responsible for government and labor relations, litigation, as well as product and policy considerations related to the future of work. He played a core role in Postmates’ advocacy for worker standards in the gig economy, including the company’s support for a successful 2020 ballot initiative with Proposition 22, which protected worker autonomy and flexibility while providing rideshare and delivery drivers with earnings guarantees, expense reimbursement, health insurance stipends, occupational accident insurance, and protections from workplace discrimination & harassment.

Before Postmates, Chapman worked as a senior associate at the San Francisco office for Littler Mendelson, P.C., a global labor and employment law firm. While at Littler, he built a practice focused on class and representative action defense and counseled employers on implementing and enforcing anti-discrimination and harassment policies. Chapman had joined Littler after four years at the New York City Commission on Human Rights, where he served as the Commission’s youngest supervising attorney.