Our attorneys have extensive legal experience in employment matters including drafting and reviewing employment policies, regulations, procedures and manuals. We advise our clients on progressive discipline of employees, addressing disability and leave issues, and employee requests for reasonable accommodations.

We represent our public entity clients in grievance and arbitration proceedings as well as in employee discipline and dismissal hearings. Our litigation experience includes representation of public entities in actions in state and federal court involving a variety of employment related disputes including disputes concerning interpretation of collective bargaining agreement provisions, civil rights violations, retaliation claims by whistleblowers, wrongful termination, and restraining orders.

Our attorneys are experienced in all aspects of employee discipline up to and including termination. We counsel clients as to the costs and realities of dismissal proceedings, and work closely with clients to consider all reasonable options. We have assisted many clients with investigating and taking appropriate steps to discipline employees while providing them with due process. We have handled over one hundred classified dismissal and discipline hearings. We also have represented districts in civil appeals of dismissal actions.

Our expertise also includes representing employers in disputes involving alleged violations of the California Labor Code, including wage and hour law violations. We also represent districts that have their own peace officers and are regularly called upon to defend against Pitchess motions filed by criminal defendants seeking information contained in a law enforcement officer's personnel files.

Our attorneys have extensive experience handling petitions for administrative writs of mandamus concerning administrative disciplinary decisions and have litigated many matters before administrative bodies including the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Administrative Law Judges, the California Office of Administrative Hearings, the California Public Employment Relations Board, the California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement, the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, the Commissions on Professional Competence, and Personnel Commissions. We also have handled several class actions involving wage and hour violations, including successfully defending a multimillion-dollar action filed by over 100,000 employees against a school district for wage errors caused by its new payroll system.