San Diego Employment Lawyers
If your employer in San Diego County broke the law, you do not have to simply accept it. EmpLaw represents employees across San Diego County in wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, unpaid wages, overtime, and other wage-and-hour claims. Our employment attorneys are based in Encinitas and serve workers throughout North County San Diego and the greater San Diego area, including Vista, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Escondido, and downtown San Diego.
What does a San Diego employment lawyer do?
A San Diego employment lawyer represents workers against employers who violate the law. We review the facts relating to what happened to you, gather the evidence, file with the right agency or court, and prosecute the case until the employer answers for it.
Most people who call us are not sure whether what happened to them was illegal. That is normal. You do not need to know the law before you give us a call. You need someone to look at the facts and tell you honestly whether there might be a claim.
Here is what that looks like in practice. We interview you regarding what happened. We review any documents that you have. If you do not have any documents, we can ask the employer to send us your documents, including your personnel file and any time and pay records. We look at the timeline, and the people involved. We reach out to potential witnesses. Then we tell you where you stand.
If you have a case, we take it on a contingency fee basis—that means you do not pay us unless we win.
The cases we handle for San Diego County employees
We represent employees only. We do not defend employers, and we do not handle workers’ compensation claims. That focus is deliberate. It means there is never a question about which side we are on. We handle cases relating to all other aspects of the employment relationship:
Wrongful termination
You were fired for an illegal reason, or forced out until quitting was the only option left.
Workplace discrimination
Sexual harassment
You were subjected to unwanted, unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that made you feel uncomfortable, disrespected, intimidated or unsafe.
Disability discrimination
Pregnancy discrimination
Wage and hour violations
Misclassification
Retaliation
You reported harassment, raised a safety concern, asked for leave, or refused to do something illegal and then you were punished (maybe, your hours were cut, your reviews turned bad, you were frozen out) or you were fired.
Class actions
The problem didn’t just impact you, but your employer’s policy shortchanged an entire group of workers. Your individual claim may be small, but if the same policy applied to your coworkers, it’s worth pursuing together — and one person can bring the case on everyone’s behalf. See our class action practice.
Wrongful termination attorney in San Diego
Wrongful termination is the claim we hear about most from San Diego County workers. California is an at-will employment state, so an employer usually does not have to give you a reason for letting you go.
At will does not mean anything goes, however. Your employer cannot fire you because of a protected characteristic or a protected reason. They cannot fire you for reporting harassment, wage theft, or unsafe conditions. They cannot fire you for taking protected leave, asking for an accommodation, asking for a lawful break, serving on a jury, or refusing to break the law for them.
When the real reason is illegal, employers rarely say so out loud. They say that your position was eliminated or that it wasn’t “the right fit” or that the company decided to go in a different direction. They point to a performance problem that nobody mentioned until the week before you were terminated. Our job is to test that story against the record.
If you were recently let go and something about it does not sit right, call us before you sign anything. Our guide on being fired for no reason in California walks through the warning signs and the first steps to take.
Where San Diego employment cases are filed
Employment claims in San Diego County move through several different forums. Which one applies depends on the type of claim you have and where the violations occurred.
San Diego Superior Court, Central Division
Civil employment lawsuits filed for the central, eastern, southern, inland and coastal parts of the county are handled at the Hall of Justice, 330 W. Broadway, San Diego. Basically, all employment lawsuits except those in North County. The courthouse is a short drive downtown from our Encinitas office.
San Diego Superior Court, North County Division
Cases arising in North County are heard at the North County Regional Center, 325 South Melrose Drive in Vista. The courthouse is roughly fifteen minutes from our Encinitas office.
United States District Court for the Southern District of California
Claims brought under federal statutes such as Title VII or the ADA or which are removed by the employer often find their way into the federal courthouses in San Diego and Imperial Counties.
California Civil Rights Department
Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) start with an administrative filing here and a right-to-sue notice before a lawsuit can be filed.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The federal counterpart for claims brought under federal anti-discrimination law.
California Labor Commissioner.
Wage claims can be filed with the Labor Commissioner’s office, which maintains a district office in San Diego at 7575 Metropolitan Drive in San Diego.
Arbitration
If you entered into a binding arbitration agreement with your employer, your case may have to be filed with an arbitration agency.
You do not have to figure out where your case should be filed or which of these requirements apply to you. That is our job, and picking the wrong path or missing a deadline can end an otherwise strong claim.
Communities we serve across San Diego County
Our office is in Encinitas, on the North County coast. We represent employees throughout the county.
North County coastal and inland:
Encinitas
Carlsbad
Oceanside
Vista
San Marcos
Escondido
Solana Beach
Del Mar
Poway
Rancho Bernardo
Rancho Santa Fe
Fallbrook.
Central and Coastal San Diego:
Downtown
La Jolla
University City
UTC
Carmel Valley
Sorrento Valley
Mira Mesa
Scripps Ranch
Kearny Mesa
Mission Valley
Point Loma
Clairemont
South and East county:
Chula Vista
National City
Imperial Beach
Coronado
El Cajon
La Mesa
Santee
Lemon Grove
Spring Valley
Otay Mesa
Lakeside
The industries change from one end of the county to the other, and so do the problems. We hear from biotech and life sciences employees in Sorrento Valley, hospitality and restaurant workers downtown and along the coast, hospital and clinical staff countywide, warehouse and logistics employees near the border, retail and hospitality workers in Carlsbad and Oceanside, and construction and nursery crews across inland North County.
Different jobs, same power struggle: an employer with a legal department counting on you to stay quiet and an employee who deserves an advocate willing to fight back.
What does it cost to hire a San Diego employment attorney?
Nothing upfront. We handle employment cases on a contingency fee basis, which means our fee comes out of a settlement or award. If there is no recovery, you owe us no attorney’s fees.
The consultation is free, and it is confidential. You can call us before you have decided to do anything at all. Plenty of people call to understand their options, then take a little time to think about it. That is fine as long as you are mindful of any pending deadlines that may be coming up.
Other Services
Contact Us
Booking an appointment is simple! Book a call or send us an email.
- (760) 483-9511
- info@emplawllp.com
Free Case Review
Confidential. No cost. No obligation.
Big Law Results. Boutique Firm Attention.
You don’t face legal issues alone. We provide resources to challenge unfair practices.
Why employees in San Diego County choose EmpLaw
We are local, not a call center.
Our attorneys are based in Encinitas and appear in San Diego County courts. When you call, you reach our office.
You work with your attorney directly.
No case is handed off to a rotating queue. You will know who is handling your matter and how to reach them.
You do not pay us a fee unless we recover for you.
We take employment cases on contingency, and the first conversation is free. If we don’t win, you owe us no fee.
We go after everything the law allows.
- Lost wages and benefits.
- Emotional distress.
- Statutory penalties.
- Punitive damages where the conduct warrants them.
- And in most employment cases, your attorney’s fees and costs are recoverable from the employer.
Protect your whole department.
Policies that shorted an entire group of workers can be pursued as a class or representative action, which is often the only way a claim worth a few hundred dollars each becomes worth pursuing.
We are trial ready.
Most cases settle but some don’t. We prepare each case as if we will take it to trial. Employers settle better cases when the firm across the table is prepared to try one.
Boutique attention, serious litigation.
You get a small firm that answers the phone and a legal team that corporations take seriously.
Meet the attorneys who would handle your case:
Deadlines Matter — Do Not Wait.
California employment deadlines vary enormously depending on what happened to you. Some run three years or longer. A few run months. The problem is that they don’t look different from the outside, and the ones that expire fastest are the ones people have never heard of.
If you were handed a severance agreement, the clock is already running. If you’re over 40, federal law generally gives you 21 days to consider it and 7 days to revoke after signing — 45 days if it was part of a group layoff. Once you sign, you have likely given up claims worth far more than what’s being offered. Have someone look at it before the window closes. This is the one situation where waiting a week may cost you something real.
Public employees face a six-month notice requirement on many claims against a government employer. That deadline is short, unforgiving, and easy to miss.
Federal discrimination claims run on a 300-day clock, even though the state equivalent may give you three years. Filing on the state side first usually protects both, but only if it happens in time.
If you think it’s been too long, ask anyway. Most people who assume they’ve missed their window haven’t. Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims under California law generally allow three years to file with the Civil Rights Department, and unpaid wage claims often reach back three to four years. We have taken cases from people who called to confirm they were too late and were not.
Evidence often expires before deadlines do. Emails get purged, coworkers move on and stop returning calls, memories blur on dates that later matter a great deal. A case brought at month thirty may be legally timely but also practically weaker than the same case at month three.
Call as soon as you can, even if you aren’t sure you want to move forward, and even if you think too much time has passed. The conversation is free and confidential, and finding out where you stand takes one call.
Talk to a San Diego employment lawyer today.
If you were fired, harassed, discriminated against, or retaliated against, or if you were denied an accommodation, pushed out over a pregnancy, misclassified, shorted on your pay, or denied meal and rest breaks, we want to hear what happened.
You don’t have to be sure that you have a case. Most people aren’t. Some are still employed and trying to figure out what to do. Some were handed a severance agreement yesterday and have days to decide. Some assume too much time has passed. All of those are good reasons to call.
The first conversation is free and confidential.
EmpLaw LLP
2235 Encinitas Blvd. Suite 210
Encinitas, CA 92024
Common Questions About Your Rights
Do I need a San Diego employment lawyer, or can I file on my own?
You can file a lawsuit with the courts or an administrative complaint with the Civil Rights Department or the Labor Commissioner without an attorney. Whether you should is a different question. Your employer will have counsel from the first day. Deadlines are strict and vary by claim type. Most importantly, what a claim is ultimately worth often depends on decisions made early from what gets alleged to which forum you choose to what evidence gets preserved before it disappears. Those choices are hard to undo later.
There’s also the practical point that in most California employment cases, the employer pays your attorney’s fees if you win. That’s built into the statutes deliberately, so that workers with modest claims can still get representation. Combined with contingency representation, it usually means the question isn’t whether you can afford a lawyer. A free consultation costs you nothing and tells you which path makes sense, including, sometimes, that you’re better off handling it yourself.
How much is my San Diego employment case worth?
It depends on what you lost and what the employer did. Damages can include lost wages and benefits, future lost income, emotional distress, statutory penalties, attorney’s fees and costs, and in some cases punitive damages. Anyone who quotes you a number before reviewing your personnel file, your pay records, and your timeline is guessing.
Can I be fired for no reason in San Diego?
Generally, yes. California is an at-will employment state, which means your employer can fire you without giving a reason.
But at-will has real limits. Your employer cannot fire you for an illegal reason — discrimination based on a protected characteristic, retaliation for reporting misconduct or unsafe conditions, requesting a disability or pregnancy accommodation, taking protected leave, or refusing to do something unlawful.
Two things worth knowing. First, “no reason given” often works in your favor rather than against you. When an employer offers no explanation, or offers one that shifts over time, or fires a strong performer weeks after a complaint, that pattern is evidence. A vague termination is frequently easier to challenge than a documented one.
Second, at-will can be modified. An employment contract, a union agreement, or in some cases an employer’s own written policies and long-standing practices can create an expectation that termination requires cause. Most people never check.
If your firing followed a complaint, a leave request, a medical diagnosis, a pregnancy announcement, or an accommodation request, the timing alone is worth a conversation.
Do you handle cases outside of North County?
Yes. Our office is in Encinitas, and we represent employees throughout San Diego County, including the City of San Diego and its neighborhoods, South Bay, East County, and North County coastal and inland. Where your case gets filed depends on the claim and where the violations happened, not on where our office sits. We appear regularly at the Hall of Justice downtown and at the North County courthouse in Vista. We also represent employees elsewhere in California, including San Diego County residents working remotely for out-of-state employers.
My employer offered me a severance package. Should I sign it?
Not before you review it with an attorney. Most severance agreements include a broad release of claims, which means signing may give up your right to sue your employer for any claims relating to your employment or the termination of your employment—this includes, without limitation, any wage claims, and any claims for discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or wrongful termination. Take the agreement home, read it, and have an employment attorney review it before the deadline runs. The amount is sometimes negotiable.
What should I do right now if I think my rights were violated?
Write down what happened while it’s fresh. Dates, names, who was present, what was said. Memory fades faster than you expect, and specific detail is what separates a strong claim from a vague one. Do this on your own device and your own time. Do not do this on a work computer or a work account.
Gather what you already have. Your offer letter, termination letter, paystubs, performance reviews, the employee handbook, any severance agreement, and relevant texts or emails. Save copies of them.
Request your personnel file and pay records in writing. California gives you the right to request both, and it applies whether or not you still work there. Employers are far more responsive to a request that arrives before a lawyer is involved.
Don’t take anything you’re not entitled to. There’s a real line between keeping copies of your own emails and performance reviews versus downloading confidential company files, customer lists, or other employees’ records. Crossing that line can create problems for you later, and damage an otherwise strong case. If you’re unsure whether something is over the line, ask before you take it.
Stay off social media about the situation. Assume anything you post will be read aloud in a deposition, including posts you later delete. Don’t delete anything, either because that creates its own problem.
Don’t sign a severance agreement without having it reviewed. Those windows are short and signing usually ends your claims.
If you’re still employed, don’t quit before you get advice. Quitting may narrow your options. Sometimes it’s still the right move, but it’s worth one conversation first.
Then call us at (760) 483-9511.
Is the consultation really free?
Yes, and it is confidential. There is no fee to have us review what happened and explain your options.