Oakland, CA – Andrew H. Friedman reprised his annual employment law update for the California Employment Lawyers Association at its 30th Annual Employment Law Conference in Oakland, California on Saturday, October 21st along with Ramit Mizrahi of Mizrahi Law.
The Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association has selected Helmer Friedman LLP partner Andrew H. Friedman to speak at the Association’s 11th Annual Labor and Employment Law Conference. The Conference will take place November 8–11, 2017 in Washington, D.C. at the Washington Hilton.
Also speaking at the conference will be Hon. Victoria A. Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Hon. Charlotte A. Burrows, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Hon. Chai R. Feldblum, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Consuela Pinto, U.S. Department of Labor; Ana Galindo-Marrone, Office of Special Counsel; Juanita C. Hernandez, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission; Jeff Rosenblum, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission; Derek Baxter, U.S. Department of Labor; Stephanie Jones, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Dan Collopy, National Labor Relations Board; Maria-Kate Dowling, National Mediation Board; Hon. Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, IL; Philip A. Miscimarra, National Labor Relations Board; Mark Gaston Pearce, National Labor Relations Board; Lauren McFerran, National Labor Relations Board; Hon. Robert Gianassi, National Labor Relations Board; Peter S. Ohr, National Labor Relations Board; Anne Noel Occhialino, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Hon. Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, IL; Hon. Paul C. Huck, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami, FL; Megan E. Guenther, U.S. Department of
Labor; Linda Wawzenski, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, IL; Joyce Walker-Jones, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Melissa Brand, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Joane Si Ian Wong, National Labor Relations Board; Jo Linda Johnson, U.S. Department of Homeland Security – TSA; Hon. Andrew J. Peck, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York,
New York, NY; Hon. Paul W. Grimm, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Baltimore, MD; Hon. Todd E. Edelman, Superior Court for
the District of Columbia, Washington, DC; Orlando J. Pannocchia, U.S. Department of Labor; and so many more.
July 14, 2017 – Andrew H. Friedman To Speak At California State Bar Association’s Labor And Employment Law Section Annual Meeting & Advanced Wage And Hour Conference
The Labor and Employment Law Section of The State Bar of California has selected Andrew H. Friedman to speak at its combined 34th Labor & Employment Law Annual Meeting and 7th Annual Advanced Wage and Hour Conference. The Meeting/Conference will take place on Thursday and Friday, July 13-14, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency – Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. Friedman will be speaking along with Anthony J. Oncidi of Proskauer Rose LLP on a panel entitled “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly—A Review Of Recent Employment Law Cases.” In this fast-paced discussion, Messrs. Oncidi and Friedman will reprise their annual review of recent reemployment law cases with an emphasis on those cases of most utility to the employment practitioner whether plaintiff, defense, or neutral. Moderating the panel will be Lisl Sotto of Weinberg Roger & Rosenfeld PC. To register for and/or learn more information about the Meeting/Conference, please go to http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Attorneys/Sections/Labor-Employment-Law/Education/Labor-Annual-Meeting-Advanced-Wage-and-Hour/Friday-Labor-and-Employment-Annual-Meeting
July 19, 2017 – The National Labor Relations Board (Regions 21 and 31) and the Orange County Labor and Employment Relations Association (“OC LERA”) have selected Andrew H. Friedman to speak at their 35th Annual Labor and Employment Law Conference. Mr. Friedman will be speaking on a panel entitled “Mandatory Arbitration Agreements and the Erosion of Public Access to the Judicial System” along with Gary S. Ganchrow of Parker Milliken and Mike Bucsko, Commissioner with the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service.
Other notable OC LERA Conference speakers include Laurel Webb (General Counsel, SEIU Local 2015), Doug McKeever (Chief Deputy Executive Director, Covered California), Josh Stehlik (Supervising Attorney, National Immigration Law Center), Jennifer Muir Beuthin (General Manager, Orange County Employees Association), Robert Roginson (Attorney, Ogletree Deakins, (former Chief Counsel to State Labor Commissioner)), Danielle Pierce (Supervisory Field Examiner, NLRB Region 31), Mori Rubin (Regional Director NLRB Region 31), William B. Cowen (Regional Director, NLRB Region 21), and Jacob F. Rukeyser (Legal Director
California Teachers Association (“CTA”)).
December 6, 2016 – Join Andrew H. Friedman, founding partner of Helmer Friedman LLP, Anthony J. Oncidi, head of the Los Angeles labor and employment law group at Proskauer Rose LLP, and David B. Weisenfeld, the legal editor for the preemployment background check, job advertising, and interviewing and selection content in the recruiting and hiring section of XpertHR USA, for this fast-paced webinar, where we explore all of the key issues on your mind, including:
Will the ACA really be repealed, or is a rebooting more likely?
What can employers expect from the EEOC and DOL?
Is overtime pay reform going to be off the table at the federal level?
Paid parental leave was a campaign talking point, but how realistic is it?
And how will the election affect the Supreme Court?
http://www.xperthr.com/pages/hr-webinars/
You can view this webinar by clicking on the following link:
Andrew H. Friedman will be speaking at the November 3, 2016 Annual Conference of the Employment Round Table of Southern California. Mr. Friedman – along with his co-panelist, Anthony J. Oncidi (of Proskauer Rose) – will be giving a legal update about the latest employment laws, regulations and cases. Other speakers will include Kevin Kish, Director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and Anna Parks, Regional Attorney, EEOC, Los Angeles, District Office. If you are interested in the latest developments in California employment law, you should attend. More information can be located here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ertsc-2016-annual-conference-and-awards-luncheon-tickets-28198033076
July 9, 2015 – Helmer Friedman LLP attorneys Andrew H. Friedman and Priyan Chandraratna will be speaking at the State Bar of California’s Labor and Employment Law Section’s 5th Advanced Wage & Hour Conference and 32nd Labor And Employment Law Section Annual Meeting on July 9 & 10, 2015 at:
JW Marriott LA Live,
900 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Mr. Friedman will be speaking along with Anthony Oncidi (of Proskauer Rose LLP) on a panel entitled The Good, The Bad & The Ugly – A Review of Recent Employment Law Cases. In this fast-paced discussion, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Oncidi will reprise their annual review of recent employment law cases with an emphasis on those cases of most utility to the employment practitioner whether plaintiff, defense or neutral.
Mr. Chandraratna will be speaking on a panel entitled Employment Discrimination 101. This panel will provide a summary of the key challenges of litigating an employment discrimination case from the plaintiff and defense perspectives, including jurisdiction and venue selection, which causes of action to plead and how to plead them so the complaint sticks, strategies to attack the complaint early on in the litigation and key defenses. Mr. Chandraratna will be speaking with Daphne Anneet (of Burke Williams & Sorensen) and Dolores Leal (of Allred Maroko & Goldberg, Los Angeles).
For more information about the Labor and Employment Law Section’s 5th Advanced Wage & Hour Conference and 32nd Labor And Employment Law Section Annual Meeting, go to http://laborlaw.calbar.ca.gov/Education/AdvancedWageHourConference/Schedule.aspx
January 26, 2015 – If you want to learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly employment law cases of 2014, you really need to attend the Employment Law Update sponsored by the Labor & Employment Law Section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association on January 26, 2015 featuring Helmer Friedman LLP partner Andrew H. Friedman. Mr. Friedman will be speaking with The Honorable Judge Virginia Keeny of the Los Angeles Superior Court and Anthony J. Oncidi of Proskauer Rose LLP. Space is limited and individuals interested in attending are strongly urged to register now! For more information and to register, go to https://bhba.org/index.php/component/jevents/icalrepeat.detail/2015/01/26/679/-/126-employment-law-update-the-best-and-the-worst-of-2014.
Helmer Friedman LLP, announced today that the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, has held that Fannie Mae’s arbitration agreement is substantively unconscionable and unenforceable. In this lawsuit, Los Angeles-based Helmer Friedman LLP and Washington, D.C-based co-counsel Bernabei & Wachtel, PLLC, represent Cecelia Carter with respect to her claims of wrongful termination, race discrimination and retaliation. See Carter v. Fannie Mae, No. 30-2013-00647896-CU-WT-CJC (Orange County Sup. Ct., filed May 3, 2013). According to the Complaint, Ms. Carter reported her concern that several Fannie Mae REO Foreclosure Specialists in the Irvine, California office had allegedly solicited illegal kickbacks from brokers in exchange for assigning Fannie Mae REO listings to those brokers. Shortly after, Fannie Mae initiated an investigation into Ms. Carter’s performance and then, on May 4, 2011, terminated her without explanation. On March 26, 2013, a federal grand jury charged Armando Granillo, one of the REO Foreclosure Specialists from the Irvine office, with three counts of “honest services” wire fraud for allegedly soliciting kickbacks from a real estate broker in Tucson, Arizona, in exchange for providing him with foreclosed properties to sell on behalf of Fannie Mae. On August 4, 2014, Mr. Granillo was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for his role in the kickback scheme. For more information about Mr. Granillo’s conviction, see http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-fannie-kickbacks-sentencing-20140804-story.html
After Ms. Carter filed her Complaint, Fannie Mae moved to compel arbitration. The Superior Court denied Fannie Mae’s motion, holding that defendant failed to satisfy its burden of establishing that Ms. Carter and Fannie Mae entered into an arbitration agreement. The Superior Court found that, although the Offer Letter referenced the arbitration policy, Fannie Mae did not include the arbitration agreement with its Offer Letter and did not tell her where to find it; Fannie Mae then revoked the Offer letter; and Fannie Mae’s subsequent offer of employment did not contain or reference an arbitration provision. Fannie Mae appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Three.
The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision on other grounds, holding that Fannie Mae’s arbitration agreement was substantively unconscionable because it was inherently one-sided in that it exempted the types of claims likely to be filed by Fannie Mae, but included the types of claims likely to be filed by the employee. See Carter v. Fannie Mae, No. G049112, 2014 WL 4212622 (Cal. App. 4th Dist. Aug. 26, 2014). The arbitration agreement covered “all” claims an employee might make involving a legally protected right relating directly or indirectly to the employee’s employment, but exempted “any claim made in connection with workers’ compensation benefits, unemployment compensation benefits, or under any of Fannie Mae’s employee welfare benefits, ERISA, or pension plans, or to any claim of unfair competition, disclosure of trade secrets, or breach of trust or fiduciary duty.” During oral argument, Fannie Mae’s counsel emphasized the aspects of the agreement it claimed were beneficial to the employee. However, the Court of Appeal held that “
“We are very pleased that the Court of Appeal rejected Fannie Mae’s attempt to force Ms. Carter into arbitration,” commented Ms. Loveless. “For years, employers have attempted to destroy one of our Country’s greatest institution – the jury trial – by forcing employees and consumers into secret tribunals that favor large corporations over individuals. The founders of our Country enshrined the right to a jury trial in our Constitution and corporations should not be allowed to take that right away.” The Court of Appeal’s decision may also significantly affect the ability of other Fannie Mae employees to bring their claims in court, rather than be forced into arbitration.
For a PDF copy of the Court of Appeal decision, click here.
For additional information or to report unlawful conduct on the part of Fannie Mae, contact:
