Employment Law Compliance, Counseling and Transactions
It is our goal to keep our clients out of court. We have a long history of helping our clients avoid administrative and court claims by delivering timely, accurate and savvy employment law advice to our employer clients. We do our level best to ensure that our employer clients act consistently with current employment laws when they make hiring, disciplinary and termination decisions, accommodate employees with disabilities, implement mass layoffs, manage leaves of absence, conduct drug testing, investigate workplace incidents, respond to personnel and payroll records requests and handle the myriad of other employment issues that arise. Our attorneys routinely resolve independent contractor versus employee classification issues.
We draft pre-employment documents, employment contracts, commission plans, confidentiality, trade secrets, inventions assignment, phantom stock, incentive stock, and severance and release agreements, employee handbooks and other employment forms and notices.
Benjamin Law Offices guides employers through wage and hour, prevailing wage, and payroll tax audits, how to respond to third party records subpoenas, and how to deal with unexpected events such as surprise visits from state or federal agency investigators.
Benjamin Law Offices responds to pre-litigation demand letters sent to our employer clients. A bona fide explanation of a legitimate, legal employment action often will discourage the filing of meritless case by a disgruntled employee.
“We attempted to settle an employee’s purported discrimination claims against our employer client before trial, but the employee and the employee’s attorneys wanted a ‘verdict.’ After jury trial and vigorous defense of the case by Benjamin Law Offices, the jury rendered a unanimous verdict in favor of our employer client on every claim. This result saved our client from potentially going out of business which would have caused about thirty people to lose their jobs.”
Labor and Employment Litigation
Unfortunately, in today’s litigious world no employer can expect to avoid employment claims. Benjamin Law Offices vigorously represents employers in defense of civil rights, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and retaliation, disability accommodation, right to leave, wage and hour, trade secrets violations, defamation, emotional distress and other employment-related claims.
Benjamin Law Offices has litigated hundreds of employment claims in the state and federal courts and before administrative agencies. In the arena of civil rights claims, our attorneys have successfully defended numerous cases alleging discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, pregnancy, military status and disability, under various state and federal laws such as California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and the state’s Military and Veterans Code.
We have defeated claims alleging violations of the state and federal leave laws, including the right to pregnancy leave, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act and California’s Family Rights Act.
Our attorneys have successfully defended cases alleging whistleblower status and/or retaliation on the basis of protected conduct such as reporting non-compliance with safety regulations, complaining about terms and conditions of employment, or filing a claim for workers’ compensation benefits (Labor Code § 132a).
In the arena of wage and hour law, Benjamin Law Offices has resolved countless disputes before the California Labor Commissioner and in the state and federal courts alleging violations of the minimum wage, prevailing wage, overtime pay, vacation pay, make-up time and travel time pay laws and regulations. We routinely defeat claims for violation of meal period and rest period laws and regulations.
Benjamin Law Offices litigates a variety of administrative agency claims including unemployment insurance benefits claims before the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, payroll tax assessments issued by the Employment Development Department, and citations and fines assessed by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
We also litigate workers’ compensation insurance premium disputes with insurance carriers.
Employment law is a diverse and ever expanding area of law. The practice area description above is representative of the types of matters we handle. If you have an employment issue not listed above, call us. We may have represented a client regarding a similar matter.
For more information on employment law, please contact the lead attorney Steven Benjamin.