Beverly Hills · All of California
Employment lawyer in Los Angeles
Most people who call me already know something went wrong at work. What they don't know is whether it was illegal, and that's a different question with a different answer.
I'm Cyrus Batchan. I represent employees across California from an office in Beverly Hills: people who were fired for the wrong reason, treated differently because of who they are, worn down until they quit, or paid less than the hours they worked.
The call is free and there's no obligation at the end of it.
- Freefirst consultation
- No feeunless you win
- You speak to menot an intake line
- Cal. Bar 287341admitted 2012
The three things I handle most
What makes a case, and what doesn't
California is an at-will state, and employers say so early and often. It's true, and it's narrower than it sounds. At will means a reason isn't required. It doesn't mean every reason is allowed.
The reasons the law puts off limits are specific. The Fair Employment and Housing Act covers the protected characteristics. Labor Code section 1102.5 covers people who report what they believe is illegal. The wage and hour rules sit in the Labor Code and in the Wage Orders, and they apply whether or not anyone signed anything.
So the useful question isn't whether your employer was fair. Plenty of unfair treatment is lawful. The question is whether what happened to you lines up with one of those categories, and that usually turns on timing, on what the documents say, and on how other people in the same position were treated.
Plenty of unfair treatment is lawful. The question is whether what happened to you was.What makes a case
What these cases usually look like
A few patterns come up often enough to mention.
The paper trail changes direction. Three years of fine reviews, then a written warning that arrives two weeks after you raised something.
The rule is applied to you and not to others. Somebody else did the same thing and is still there.
The explanation moves. It was performance, then it was restructuring, then it was culture fit, depending on who you asked and when.
None of those is proof on its own. Together they're the shape of a case, and they're the sort of thing that shows up in documents rather than in anybody's memory of a conversation.
Deadlines
Every one of these claims has a deadline, and more than one usually runs at the same time. A discrimination claim and a wage claim arising from the same job work to different clocks, and if your employer was a city, a county or the state, there's a much shorter one that most people have never heard of.
They're all shorter than people expect, and the clock usually starts on the day the thing happened rather than the day you decided to do something about it. When one runs out, the claim is over however strong it was.
If it happened in the last few weeks, you have room to think. If it was months ago, call this week.
Where in California I work
The office is in Beverly Hills and most of my cases come out of Los Angeles County. Two other places get a page of their own, because the work there is different enough to need one:
The San Fernando Valley — production crews, clinics and the businesses along Ventura Boulevard, with cases heard in Van Nuys rather than downtown.
Riverside and the Inland Empire — warehouse and distribution work, quotas, heat, and drivers told they are contractors.
Beyond that I take cases anywhere in California. If what happened to you happened in another state, I'll say so on the call and put you in front of someone licensed there rather than hold on to it.
Hablamos español, y puede leer esto en español.
What it costs
Nothing to talk to me. If I take the case, you pay nothing unless money is recovered for you, and case costs come out of the recovery rather than out of your pocket. If we don't win, you don't pay. It's all in writing before you sign.
What happens when you call
You tell me what happened, in whatever order it comes out. I ask questions. Ten minutes is usually enough for me to know what I'm looking at.
Then I tell you what I think: whether there's a claim, what the deadline looks like, what proving it would involve, and what the realistic range is once I know the facts. If there isn't a case, you'll hear that on the call instead of a month later.
You'll be speaking to me, not to an intake service.
Get in touch
Beverly Hills, working across California.
Leave your name, a number and a sentence about what happened, and I'll call you back. Keep it short. Don't attach documents and don't write out confidential details here.
Sending this form doesn't make me your lawyer, and nothing protects a filing deadline until we've both signed a written agreement. If your deadline is close, call rather than write.
Free consultation
Tell me what happened
Ten minutes on the phone is usually enough for me to tell you whether you have a case. If you do not, I will say so on the call.