Every Southern California employer needs an experienced, proven California employer defense attorney.  The Watkins Firm has served employers across the State of California for more than four decades.  We have the experience and legal skill to protect business owners and employers at every step of the employment process.

The old saying “a good defense starts with a good offense” definitely applies here.  Your California employer defense attorney at the Watkins Firm will work with you and your company to review, modify and implement strong enforceable employment contracts and the policies and procedures necessary to back them up.  A strong employee handbook signed by each worker on your team is another brick in the foundation of protecting your interests as an employer.

Unfortunately, the State of California makes it very cumbersome to be an employer.  We understand.  We’ve been employers in San Diego and Southern California for decades.  We discuss a lot of the issues local employers face in a recent Sound Business Insights podcast “Risk and Guidance for CA Employers.”  We invite you to listen to Dan Watkins as he shares stories and insight into the challenges faced by Southern California employers and the successful, proven strategies required to protect them.

Your Watkins Firm California employer defense attorney can also help to negotiate and resolve disputes with employees.  This helps to put out smoldering embers before they become a fire.  The Private Attorneys General Act or PAGA is being used by plaintiff’s attorneys to use a single disgruntled worker as an excuse to come in and develop large (and expensive) legal issues from unpaid overtime and wage and hour actions to misclassification lawsuits.

Pro-Tip: “Wage and hour and overtime disputes are similar, but PAGA, a private attorney general claim against the employer is a really heating up. There are law firms that just do that and they send out constant communications to every area of employee you can imagine. And if anyone’s thinking about leaving your employment, they’re going to be tempted to get a little severance pay involuntary.

And then misclassification of independent contractors. California keeps changing the law and the courts keep changing their interpretation of the California law. So yes, they do really have to stay on top of that. Sexual harassment is always a scary thing because you can get sued for sexual harassment and lose, even though no one was actually harassed because you didn’t investigate it. That’s a separate cause of action. Failing to investigate it according to the law, even if your investigation finds out that it was a false claim, which seems terrible, but it’s true. And then discrimination claims are always there. Retaliation again for somebody making a false claim. If you retaliate against them for lying about you and suing and lying about you, you’re still liable for retaliating against a liar. Again, terrible but true. And then general wrongful termination, how people are terminated and whether or not you comply, you can get stuck with 60 days of pay that you inadvertently didn’t know about.

The most typical type of cases we see are when people aren’t allowed to have breaks. Let’s break it down to the way I look at it. I break it down into claims where you’re going to get hit with attorney’s fees versus claims where there’s no attorney’s fees allowed. Because the ones where you can get stuck for attorney’s fees are the ones you’re likely going to see in a lawsuit or a claim against you because the lawyers rarely go after the ones that are only break time, or only mischaracterization of how they write the paycheck. If it’s not something with an attorney’s fees clause, you’re not going to see it in a PAGA lawsuit.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

You need help making sure your documents and associated policies are up-to-date and your management team takes consistent action to apply them.  California employers also need help meeting the extensive federal, state and local laws and regulations in order to reduce the likelihood of disputes or litigation.

If you are searching for an experienced, proven San Diego employer defense attorney we invite you to review our podcast Episode 28 – Common Employer Disputes and Defenses, as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.