Jonathan Werner helps employers. He knows that managing employees isn’t the principal business of most companies, and he strives to allow his clients to spend less time dealing with employment law matters so that they can spend more time meeting their business objectives.

Jonathan’s experience is broad based, and focused on the full range of HR issues all employers face: resolving problems, like lawsuits and other employment claims; hiring and separating employees, including creating the contracts and agreements that accompany such events; and creating safe workplace environments that comply with all federal and state laws and regulations.

Jonathan regularly litigates employment disputes – over wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, trade secret, unfair competition, and breach of contract matters – in both California and Federal courts. In addition, he represents clients before state and federal agencies, including:

• The California Department of Fair Employment & Housing
• The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement
• Cal/OSHA
• The Employment Development Department
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• The United States Department of Labor

He also regularly counsels HR managers and company executives on issues related to hiring employees and properly retaining independent contractors; dismissals, such as terminations, mass layoffs, and plant closings; and their responses to a broad range of day-to-day employment matters including employee discipline, harassment, and discrimination complaints, and most significantly legal compliance with the many federal, state, and local laws and regulations that affect the employment relationship.

Finally, Jonathan has extensive experience drafting employment agreements, complex compensation plans, severance agreements, employee handbooks, and other employment policies.

Employment
Litigation
Retail, Food & Beverage

• Member, Orange County Bar Association, Labor & Employment Law Section
• Member, Society for Human Resource Management
• Board Member, Aviva Family and Children’s Services
• Mentor, Tiger Woods Foundation Scholarship Program
• Past Board Member and Treasurer, Irvine Ranch Little League
• Past Board Member, The Center for the Partially Sighted
• Past Member, Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, Membership Committee

Representative work includes:

• Obtaining temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions in cases involving former employees who misappropriated confidential customer information and other trade secrets from their former employers.
• Trying and second-chairing several bench and jury trials in courts throughout California.
• Briefing, arguing and successfully obtaining summary judgment in numerous cases brought by employees against former employers.
• Successfully defended a trial court's order granting summary judgment in favor of a client in a matter before the California Court of Appeal. Demetrius Heckard v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., et al., 2005 Cal. Unpub LEXIS 10540 (Cal. Ct. App. 2005).

German