California Employment Law

Overview

We have a unique expertise among Texas employment law firms – California-licensed attorneys who have a depth of expertise in advising on policy and compliance issues and litigating disputes under California law. Our expertise allows employers with employees in both Texas and California to use just one employment law firm to address employment issues under both states, leading to greater efficiencies in their legal matters. Clients benefit not only by this unique cross-over expertise, but also from our hourly rates, which are significantly below those of similarly experienced attorneys officing in California.

We are a leader in providing advice on employment law issues for firms outside of California. For 10 straight years, we have provided a “California Law for Texas Employers” Seminar, which focuses not only on the ways in which California employment law differs from Texas law, but also provides a summary of and compliance strategies for California’s new employment laws going into effect in the coming year.

Our expertise includes all facets of California employment law – advice & counsel, litigation, training, and investigations.

Employment Law Advice & Counsel

Our California-licensed attorneys provide advice and counsel on almost all employment-related laws in California. This includes both assistance with employers seeking merely to understand and comply with California’s complex web of laws, regulations, wage orders, court decisions, and administrative guidance, as well as advice when employers are dealing with an employment issue arising in real time. Our advice and counsel practice is designed not only to address such real-time issues, but also to reduce our clients’ risks of class, collective, and Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims.

We represent employers of all sizes, from Fortune 100 companies to 1-2 employee startups (California has laws that cover employers with even just one employee) and everything in between. Some of the most common areas of counseling include leaves of absence and accommodations, worker classification, investigations, reductions in force, and employee hiring, discipline, and termination. We focus on preventative counseling, avoiding problems or disputes before they occur.

We also have specific expertise in assisting in the following areas:

Handbooks and Personnel Policies

We draft, review, and advise on employee handbooks and other personnel policies. We also specialize in creating a special “addendum” to an employee’s national handbook for California-specific policies. Such policies include comprehensive harassment, discrimination, and retaliation prevention, leaves of absence, accommodations, compensation and benefit issues, drug and alcohol screening, detection, and prohibition, privacy and electronic information usage, discipline, “at will” statements, desk and locker inspection, workplace violence prevention, vacation, sick leave and paid time off (PTO), meal and rest breaks, standards of conduct, and other critical policies. We also work with clients in creating employee handbooks and arbitration programs specific to their workforce.

Wage & Hour Compliance and Other Compensation Issues

In addition to assisting employers in the review of job classifications for applicable exemptions under the California and federal law, we are frequently called upon by employers, as well as other law firms on behalf of their own clients, to assist in the understanding and complying with California’s byzantine wage & hour laws, regulations, wage orders, court decisions, and opinion letters. We assist employers in defending wage claims before the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), along with other administrative claims. Our California-licensed attorneys routinely audit client wage and hour practices to ensure compliance with California law. We also assist our clients in the development and drafting of policies governing overtime, meal and rest breaks, paid time off, paid sick leave, California leave laws, commissions, bonuses, and other compensation issues.

Terminations, Reductions in Force and Plant Closings

In the area of workplace separation, our California attorneys counsel employers on issues that arise from a single employee termination to the complications of reductions in force, mass layoffs and plant closings triggering obligations under both the federal Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) and California’s Cal-WARN Act.In the case of a downsizing, we advise clients through the selection process, preparation of proper documentation, delivery of information to the various employee groups and organizations impacted, and the drafting of exit packages that incorporate appropriate separation and release agreements.California law has specific requirements for separation agreements, which our California-licensed attorneys monitor.

Compliance & General Advice: Areas

We provide advice on day-to-day employment law issues in California covering a wide variety of topics:

Absenteeism
Accommodation
Affirmative Action
Alcohol & Drugs
Applications
Arbitration Agreements
Background Checks (including California’s “Ban-the-Box” laws)
Bonus Plans and Agreements
COBRA
Commission Plans and Agreements
Confidential Information
Dating Relationships
Discipline
Discrimination
Docking Pay
Documentation
Equal Pay
Evaluation Systems
Executive Employment Contracts
Executive Order 11246
Firing
Handbook Policies & Procedures
Harassment
Hiring
Independent Contractors
Investigations
Job Descriptions
Leave Policies (including California Family Rights Act “CFRA”) and Pregnancy Disability)
Libel
Military Rights
Misconduct
No Hire Provisions
Non-competition (generally prohibited in California but occasionally permitted)
Non-solicitation
Notices to Employee
Offer Letters
Payroll and Personnel Records Requests
Reductions in Force
References
Release Agreements
Relocation Policies
Sarbanes-Oxley
Searches
Sick Pay
Slander
Suicide Indications
Termination Documentation
Theft
Trade Secrets
Unfair Labor Practices
Unemployment Compensation
Vacation Pay/PTO Rules
Workplace Violence

Employment Litigation

Our California-licensed attorneys bring over 40 years of collective experience in representing the interests of employers and individual managers in employment controversies presented for final resolution to administrative agencies, arbitrators, judges, and juries. We are committed to proactive representation that seeks the optimum resolution and benefit for our clients. In doing so, we work closely with our clients through the process, analyzing risk at each stage from the demand letter to the appeal.

In all litigation we handle, we are sensitive to client desires to control costs and adhere to realistic litigation budgets. We staff our cases leanly and charge rates typically much lower than California-based firms.

We also work with clients in designing arbitration plans, as well as other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

Agency Proceedings & Charges

Compliance advice quickly turns to controversy representation the moment our client receives a demand letter from an opposing counsel or the notice of a charge of discrimination filed with the California Civil Rights Division (CRD), the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The preparation of the charge response is critical to the employer’s later defense.Our California attorneys also represent employers in wage and retaliation claims under the DLSE and unemployment benefits claims before the Employment Development Department (EDD), as well as issues involving the U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA, and CalOSHA.

Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation Claims

Our litigation docket has historically included a number of claims based upon alleged violations of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), which prohibits discrimination on a myriad of bases, including many not prohibited by Texas law. Such cases are often couched as allegations of unlawful harassment.

Allegations of retaliation often accompany discrimination and harassment suits based on the various civil rights laws. We also have defended allegations of retaliation brought pursuant to California’s expansive public-policy claims (also known as Tameny claims), as well as under the multitude of California statutes prohibiting various unlawful actions.

Wage and Hour Claims

California’s complex web of wage and hour laws lend themselves particularly well to class and representative claims. We defend all such claims, as well as individual claims of all types. We seek to avoid class certifications and limit the number of members of class, collective, and representative actions. In close partnership and coordination with our clients, we also engage in proactive measures to reach the most favorable and cost-effective result for our clients.

Non-Compete and Trade Secret Controversies

California law is extremely complex when it comes to restrictive covenants – non-competition, non-solicitation, and nondisclosure, and always changing. Controversies surrounding the alleged breach of such provisions are increasing as employers seek to protect their business interests and trade secrets. Our California attorneys have deep experience representing the interests of the new or prior employer in California temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, and permanent injunction process, as well as in declaratory judgment proceedings.

Employment Training Litigation

As all employers with California employees know, California requires all employees to receive employment law training in minimum amounts over defined time periods, as specified in California’s extensive regulations. Our California-licensed attorneys are intimately familiar with all topics of required training and provide cost-effective training for non-managerial employees and engaging, interactive, and thought-providing training for managers. Our attorneys work closely with our clients on training strategies that uniquely fit the clients’ needs, in a cost-effective way.

Investigations

Inevitably, the need to investigate workplace complaints and disputes arise. Our California-licensed attorneys have the required expertise and knowledge of California employment law to either to conduct the investigations themselves or to advise and guide their clients through investigations performed by the client’s own representatives. The quality of an investigation is directly related to the legal exposure that a client will have following that investigation, which our attorneys well understand.