Employment Law Practice Areas
The six kinds of claim our attorneys handle, what separates one from another, and where to read more on each. For a shorter overview of how we work with clients, see our employment law services page.
Start with the claim that fits your situation
Wrongful Termination
Fired in a way that breaks a contract, a company policy or the law. Being pushed out until you quit counts too.
Workplace Discrimination
Worse treatment because of race, sex, gender, age, disability or religion, in hiring, pay, promotion, discipline or firing.
Sexual Harassment
Quid pro quo demands tied to a job benefit, or sex-based conduct severe or repeated enough to make work abusive.
Hostile Work Environment
Conduct severe or repeated enough that the workplace itself becomes intimidating. A pattern, not a single bad day.
Whistleblower and Retaliation
Punishment for reporting fraud, a safety violation or other misconduct, whether you reported it to HR or to an agency.
FMLA and Medical Leave
Leave denied, cut short or punished. Up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for eligible employees.
Each claim in more detail
Wrongful Termination
Most employees in the United States work at will, which means an employer can end the job for almost any reason. The exceptions are what matter. A firing becomes wrongful when it breaks an employment contract, goes against a written company policy, or is prohibited by law, such as a dismissal that lands right after a discrimination complaint.
Being pushed out counts as well. If conditions were made bad enough that you had no reasonable choice but to quit, that is constructive termination.
Workplace Discrimination
Discrimination claims turn on why you were treated differently. Federal and state law prohibit less favorable treatment based on race, sex, gender, age, disability or religion, and those protections cover hiring, pay, promotion, discipline and firing.
The unfair treatment is rarely announced. Most cases are built from patterns instead: who got promoted, who was disciplined for the same conduct, what changed after you disclosed a pregnancy or a diagnosis.
Sexual Harassment
Under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and federal Title VII, workplace sexual harassment takes two forms. Quid pro quo harassment ties a job benefit to putting up with sexual conduct, such as a manager who hints that a raise or a shift depends on going along with advances. The second form is a sex-based hostile environment, where the conduct is severe or repeated enough to make the workplace abusive.
The harasser does not have to be your supervisor. Coworkers, clients, customers and vendors are all covered. Under FEHA the harassment rules reach employers of every size, down to a single employee. Filing deadlines run through the Civil Rights Department or the EEOC, and they are strict.
Hostile Work Environment
A hostile work environment is the wider version of the same idea: conduct severe or repeated enough that the workplace becomes intimidating or abusive. One bad meeting is not a claim. A pattern is.
These cases are built from what you kept, which is why emails, text messages, dated notes and the names of people who saw the conduct matter so much.
Whistleblower Protection and Retaliation
Reporting fraud, a safety violation or other misconduct is protected activity, and punishing you for the report is a separate violation from the original wrongdoing.
Retaliation usually arrives quietly: a demotion, a schedule change, a sudden poor review, or a firing that follows a complaint by a few weeks. The report can be internal, to a manager or to HR, or external, to a government agency.
FMLA and Medical Leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, including for the birth of a child or to care for a spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition.
Most FMLA disputes are not arguments about whether the law applies. They are arguments about paperwork: notice an employer says came too late, documentation it claims never arrived, or a job that quietly changed while the employee was out.
Most cases cross more than one area
These categories describe how the law files claims, not how the situation feels from inside it. One sequence of events often produces several claims at once. You report harassment, your hours get cut, and a month later you are let go. That is a harassment claim, a retaliation claim and a termination claim out of a single story.
You do not need to work out which label fits before you call. Sorting that out is part of the case review.
What the law allows you to recover
The remedies available depend on the claim and on the statute behind it. They can include back pay for wages you lost, reinstatement to your position, compensation for emotional harm, and penalties the statute sets against the employer.
We pursue the full range the statute allows in your case, and we tell you early which of those remedies is realistically in play.
Where to go next
For a rough sense of what a claim might be worth before you speak to anyone, use the discrimination lawsuit settlement calculator or the harassment compensation calculator. To see how a case moves from the first call to resolution, read the employment law process. When you want someone to look at the facts, contact us for a free case review.