Employment Law and Litigation

Employers often struggle to strike the right balance among their goals for profitability, risk management, and encouragement of employee productivity and creativity. This is no easy task; however, we provide our clients with the tools and, in some cases, the armament to meet this challenge.

Reish Luftman Reicher & Cohen's experience representing California employers ranges from claim prevention work, such as reviewing and drafting personnel policies; counseling employers regarding compliance, discipline and termination issues; helping employers to investigate and diffuse internal claims; and aggressively litigating employment lawsuits.

Our clients include closely-held, middle-market businesses with revenues of $5 million to $200 million in industries as diverse as manufacturing, retail, service and entertainment.

Our employment law attorneys help businesses prevent or solve employment problems before a lawsuit arises through timely, effective, and pragmatic legal advice. If a matter is still destined for litigation, we want to be engaged as early as possible to ensure that the client's evidence and people are ready for trial.

Employer Counseling and Claim Prevention

Employers want to treat their employees fairly and in compliance with legal requirements; however, many are wary of the seemingly endless tangle of legal constraints and of being sued by under-performing or incapable employees who may not take responsibility for their own shortcomings. As experienced litigators, we know what preventative measures employers can take in managing their businesses to minimize the risks of employment claims and expensive litigation.

Among the areas we actively counsel clients are:

• Human Resource practices and policies audits, and training for employment law compliance;

• Managing a work force in multiple states and local legal compliance;

• Discipline and terminations-dealing with difficult employees and planning for and documenting defensible good faith employer action;

• Documenting employee performance and emerging performance problems;

• Investigating employees suspected of wrongdoing, such as embezzlement, sexual harassment and leaking trade secrets;

• Recruitment, pre-hire investigation, interviewing, protective job applications and hiring decisions;

• Employee handbooks and other protective employment policies;

• Arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution programs and agreements;

• Employment contracts, executive compensation plans and stock options;

• Sexual harassment avoidance programs, including preparing and implementing written policies, educating employers and training employees;

• Trade secret protection programs, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, and employee invention assignment agreements;

• Federal and California wage and hour compliance, including overtime entitlement, exempt classification and vacation accruals;

• Independent contractor and employee classification, including the effect on employment and income tax withholding, wage and hour, workers compensation and discrimination, and other employment torts;

• Equal Employment Opportunity compliance and avoiding age, race, sex, disability, pregnancy and other discrimination under Federal civil rights laws and California Fair Employment and Housing Act;

• Americans with Disabilities Act, including reasonable accommodation;

• Employee privacy rights, employer technology rights, workplace violence and drug testing; and

• Leave entitlements, including Family and Medical Leave Act, California Family Rights Act and Pregnancy Disability Act.