Editor Emeritus

David has been a partner since 1988 and represents management in all areas of employment law. David’s practice traditionally emphasized litigation, primarily the defense of claims for workplace harassment, wrongful termination, and employment discrimination. In recent years he has concentrated on defense of class actions alleging patterns of employment discrimination or violation of wage and hour laws.

Senior Editors

Elizabeth Levy

Elizabeth defends against single-plaintiff and class action employment matters. She frequently advises clients to help them develop solutions that are practical and tailored to their business needs. Clients look to Elizabeth for effective and practical ways to apply California law as it rapidly evolves.

Coby M. Turner

Coby is dedicated to helping clients identify and solve labor and employment issues before they become problems, and to assisting them in the event that they do. Both large national employers and small local companies face an increasingly complicated regime of federal and state laws, particularly in California.

Catherine Feldman

Catherine represents employers in both single plaintiff and class actions in California and federal courts, arbitrations, and mediations. Catherine also counsels employers concerning various employment-related issues, including employee discipline and termination, requests for accommodation and medical leaves of absence, and other employment policy matters.

Additional Contributors

Kristina Launey

Kristina provides clients collaborative, strategic, effective employment and disability access solutions and litigation defense, which minimize risk and keep in mind the business goals and realities. Civil rights and nondiscrimination laws, especially those protecting individuals with disabilities, can often be complex and individualized in their application. This poses compliance and litigation defense challenges for businesses. To navigate sticky disability discrimination compliance matters, employers and public accommodations turn to Kristina for practical, efficient, and effective compliance solutions and litigation strategy.

Phillip Ebsworth

Phillip defends clients in single-plaintiff and class action matters, partnering with them to protect their culture and business goals. Originally from the UK, Phillip understands the feeling clients can have when confronted with the maze of California’s labor and employment laws for the first time. Phillip’s experience of adopting and adapting to a new and different legal landscape helps him partner with clients to counsel them on how their operations can find a home in California.

Kerry Friedrichs

Kerry identifies problems and evaluates risks and alternatives to existing practices in wage-and-hour law, in a practical and creative way. Kerry assists clients with all aspects of wage-and-hour compliance matters, including developing and implementing a variety of pay structures. She helps clients who are trying to develop compliant compensation plans that align with their business goals.

Tim Hoppe

Tim counsels and represents employers in all aspects of employment-related litigation and traditional labor law, including wage and hour class actions and employment discrimination claims.

Eric Lloyd

Eric is a determined litigator who provides strategic and efficient counsel to clients. Eric’s frontline experience in a wide variety of matters provides him with a full array of employment litigation skills. His practice focuses on single-plaintiff litigation, including discrimination, harassment and retaliation cases, as well as and wage-and-hour class actions. In particular, Eric has significant experience litigating cases involving independent contractor misclassification and joint employment allegations. Eric is adept at crafting and leveraging creative strategies that position cases for favorable resolutions.

Scott Mallery

Scott invokes his unique legal experiences to approach problems from a variety of different angles to proceed with the most efficient, cost-effective and practical strategy, whether that be a public policy, advice and counsel, or litigation issue. Clients look to Scott to demystify the political process in California, and to present practical solutions for clients attempting to navigate the complex web that is the California political process generally, and labor and employment law specifically.

Ryan McCoy

Ryan partners with clients to find the most effective solutions to the wide range of complex matters facing employers today. Clients nationwide look to Ryan for practical solutions to address the day-to-day concerns arising from the employment relationship.

Jennifer Mora

Jennifer‘s multifaceted practice is focused on the delivery of proactive, pragmatic solutions that help clients avoid litigation and develop internal compliance initiatives. Jennifer brings a unique combination of traditional labor and specialized employment law experience to a broad range of industries, and has devoted nearly 20 years of her career advising employers on matters impacting them most. She interned at the National Labor Relations Board, and since that time, has developed vast experience in traditional labor law matters to assist employers with strategic labor relations, planning, and dispute management, including Board litigation, union avoidance, collective bargaining, discharge and contract interpretation arbitrations, strikes, elections, and Section 301 litigation.

Ilana Morady

Ilana partners with clients to help them navigate the landscape of safety and environmental laws. Environmental and safety compliance is crucial to business operations, and the regulatory landscape is in constant flux. Clients across all industries look to Ilana for practical guidance on regulations in the environmental/safety realm. She routinely assists companies with systematic approaches to compliance, including training, creating policies and procedures, responding to regulatory authorities, and managing environmental and safety related regulatory inspections.

Bernie Olshansky

Bernie focuses on employment, workers’ compensation, and contracts matters. He has researched and drafted memoranda on contract, procedure, traditional labor, wage and hour, and general employment issues.

Blog Administrator

Rachel Rojas

Rachel is a case assistant with Seyfarth, and has been with the firm since 2017. Rachel has also been assisting with California Peculiarities Employment Law Blog posts as a blog administrator since 2017.