Fellows Employment Lawyers

Our firm has been representing individuals against institutions for over 40 years. We take pride in
serving the "under served" in employment discrimination, harassment and retaliation cases; wage theft cases, medical malpractice and serious injury matters. Our AV rated firm has had successes in all of these areas.
For details, please see our website at www.mhlegal.net.

California Personal Injury and Employment Lawyer & attorney, Alex G. Tovarian has got offices in San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose. Call for FREE consultaion and appointment to sort out legal issues. Unlike other huge law firms with many different lawyers handling different aspects of your case, Alex G. Tovarian is personally involved in every case the firm handles from start to finish.

Advise and represent clients on all aspects of employment law, including wrongful discharge, retaliation, discrimination, breach of contract, compensation, and wage and hour disputes. Advise and draft offers of employment and separation agreements. Experience with wage and hour class actions, trade secrets and breach of contract litigation. Represent clients in state and federal courts, arbitration, and with administrative agencies

Vadim Alden is an experienced and skilled attorney specializing in litigation, business transactions, and employment law. Vadim represents a broad spectrum of clients in state and federal courts in contractual and employment disputes, personal injury, construction, and collection matters. In addition to his proven litigation experience, Vadim also practices in the area of corporate and business transactions. He serves as general counsel to several established and emerging companies in the Bay Area. For these companies, Vadim provides legal counsel in the areas of business entity creation, contract negotiation and formation, executive compensation, employment and labor law, intellectual property and general risk...

Brian J. Robbins is a co-founder and the managing partner of Robbins LLP. He has committed his entire career to representing shareholders, employees, consumers, and small businesses in complex litigation. Mr. Robbins has prosecuted hundreds of cases across the country, often in leadership roles, and has achieved sizable monetary recoveries and corporate governance improvements on behalf of his clients.

Mr. Robbins’ achievements are proof positive that shareholder derivative actions are an important tool for keeping corporate management and fraud in check. His dedication to shareholder rights has helped propel Robbins LLP into a nationally recognized leader in shareholder rights litigation. As...

Terrance J. Evans is a partner in the Trial Practice Group of Duane Morris in San Francisco. He concentrates his practice in representing the financial services industry, which includes international, national and community banks; loan service companies; and insurance companies.

With respect to the insurance industry, Mr. Evans concentrates his practice in complex commercial litigation and policy interpretation and analysis. He has represented commercial primary, excess and umbrella insurers in a wide range of multimillion-dollar cases, including declaratory relief, bad faith, rescission, subrogation, indemnity, additional insurance, interpleader and reformation actions.

In relation to the banking industry, Mr. Evans has represented international,...

Gemma L. Mondala's practice is broad but focuses primarily on business litigation, employment law and complex litigation matters. Gemma's experience includes the defense of insureds against claims related to automobile accidents, premises liability, products liability, slip/trip and falls, dog bites, toxic torts and construction defects. She has also represented business clients in enforcing and defending against breach of contract and business tort claims (i.e. intentional interference with contract and business advantage, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, fraud and misrepresentation) as well as claims involving breaches of fiduciary duties. Gemma also advises Cities, Counties and...

Eric Pierson is a practical and results-oriented attorney with over twenty-five years of in-house and law firm experience and a proven track record of success as a strategic partner and trusted advisor serving for-profit and nonprofit entities. Eric has deep expertise in general corporate matters, nonprofits, employment law, commercial transactions and crisis management, with a special focus on managing union organizing drives and contract negotiations for nonprofits that respect labor rights. He offers strong experience in litigation, intellectual property, antitrust, environmental, compliance, product liability, artificial intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity and ediscovery as well. He is fluent in cross-border issues and...

Mark Venardi was born in 1962 in Seattle, Washington. He was raised in Peoria, IL, a Midwest blue collar town. He enlisted in the United States Coast Guard and proudly served from 1980 through 1985. He spent the first two years on a sea going tug performing search and rescue and marine law enforcement from the Grand Banks to the Windward Passage aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa, which was the Coast Guard vessel that performed the rescue in “The Perfect Storm.”

Alden Knisbacher has represented clients in the Bay Area and across California since 1994. He has litigated hundreds of cases in various areas of law including employment, real estate, contract and business disputes, probate disputes, civil rights and other matters.

Mr. Knisbacher is a Georgetown Law graduate.

When not practicing law he can be found hiking, biking, running or cycling with his two children. Or, perhaps, playing with their pet bunny, Bobby.

After 22 years as a trial attorney, I have decided to limit my practice to furthering the cause of disability access and ending disability discrimination in the workplace, at home and in public places. If you are disabled temporarily or permanently, you have special rights but no government agency to enforce them. If you think you have been the victim of discrimination, call us now for a free consultation.

I was born in Latin America and grew up in San Francisco. A product of the Bay Area, I studied economics at UC Berkeley before moving to Washington, DC, where I worked at both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve. In 2003, I embarked on my legal studies at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY. Upon graduation, I worked as a corporate associate in Manhattan at a boutique international law firm. There I had the opportunity to work on a wide array of corporate transactions, from financing the construction of a hotel in NYC, structuring investments...

April practices civil litigation specializing in employment law, estate planning and probate litigation,transportation law and real estate transactions. She is a strategic thinker and advocate who is focused on providing exceptional customer service while solving and preventing legal problems. April is a former Assistant State's Attorney in Illinois and worked as a Staff Attorney for the 19th Judicial Circuit in Illinois. She also worked for the San Diego District Attorney's Office.

Mr. Miller has literally thousands of hours of experience representing people in high stakes, multi-million dollar complex litigation against many of the largest corporations and product manufacturers in the United States, including John Crane, Georgia-Pacific, Lorillard Tobacco Company, General Electric, Kaiser Gypsum and Kelly-Moore. Mr. Miller regularly litigates cases against the most prestigious "Big Law" insurance defense firms in the US. His legal practice focuses on all civil litigation representing plaintiffs, including employment law representing employees, consumer safety law, toxic injury law, such as asbestos, tobacco and catastrophic injury and wrongful death.

Gregory M. Clement's practice focuses on corporate, real estate and other transactional matters, as well as a wide array of employment law issues. Mr. Clement has handled the purchase and sale of numerous companies, including several multimillion dollar acquisitions by publicly traded companies and represents clients in a wide variety of fields including transportation, software, entertainment, insurance, Internet and telecommunications. Mr. Clement began his legal career as a business litigator in Washington, D.C. before joining the business litigation firm of Whitcombe, Makin & Pentis in Long Beach. Before joining BKCG in 2000, he was general counsel of Golden Eagle...

Jon McGrath has been practicing employment law in Southern California for over ten years, upholding the principle of "preventative law", which focuses on legal compliance and risk avoidance for smaller sized businesses in Orange County and throughout the state. Jon has a successful track record of being a business owner himself and understands the issues that Californian business have with compliance and a multitude of state and federal employment laws and regulations, such as dealing with discrimination and harassment matters.

Mr. McGrath is a graduate of California State University at Long Beach and California Western School of Law in San...

Michael Oberbeck is a senior counsel focusing on business litigation issues. At BKCG, Mr. Oberbeck has extensively litigated employment disputes, commercial and real property disputes, international manufacturing and distribution litigation, and trademark and franchise issues. Mr. Oberbeck has litigated cases throughout California in both state and federal courts, and he has obtained many client-favorable results at trial, arbitration, and mediation. Mr. Oberbeck also has authored and successfully argued several matters before the California Courts of Appeals for BKCG clients. Born in Evansville, Indiana, Mr. Oberbeck graduated, cum laude, from Purdue University in 1993 with a double major in Psychology...

Ms. Gold is an experienced litigation attorney who specializes in class action labor and employment matters. She spent the first decade of her career at a major law firm working on a wide range of business matters, including defending clients in high-stakes class action litigation. This experience provided Ms. Gold with valuable insight on how to best position cases for settlement and/or trial by allowing her to better understand defendants’ strategies, incentives, and motivations throughout the various phases of litigation. Ms. Gold then transitioned to a well-known boutique plaintiff-side class action law firm, where she was instrumental in obtaining nearly $100,000,000...

Danielle L. GruppChang is a passionate advocate for workers’ rights and a seasoned attorney specializing in wage and hour class actions. Raised in a family where both parents worked in the restaurant industry, Ms. GruppChang developed an early respect for the hard work and resilience of the Californian workers. This background exposed Ms. GruppChang the struggles of working-class individuals sparked her dedication to fighting for justice on behalf of workers. Ms. GruppChang’s professional journey began when she started working at a local coffee shop and continued throughout college where she worked tables, often serving her classmates. These experiences further resolved her...

Lara is an associate attorney at Blackstone Law. She graduated from Wake Forest University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology with a concentration in Criminal Justice and a minor in Communications. Lara then earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles where she specialized in Critical Race Studies. While in law school, Lara worked as a law clerk at the District of Columbia Public Defender Service and as a judicial clerk in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Hearings Unit in Los Angeles. She was involved with the El Centro Teen Court Clinic, Disability Law Journal,...

Leo Livshits is an accomplished employment attorney with extensive trial and litigation experience. Mr. Livshits handles a wide variety of employment matters involving workplace discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and other civil rights violations. Aside from securing numerous seven-figure settlements in single-plaintiff cases, Mr. Livshits has co-chaired jury trials and arbitrations that resulted in verdicts or judgments of $155.4 million, $2.7 million, $1.7 million, and $1 million. Additionally, Mr. Livshits has successfully litigated appeals in state and federal court. This includes a published decision in Hernandez v. Meridian Management Services, LLC (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 1214, where the California Court of Appeal found that...

Betty is an associate attorney at Blackstone Law. She graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a concentration in International Relations and a minor in Armenian Studies. While in undergrad, Betty, along with fellow classmates, started the Armenian Pre-Law Students Association, to connect Armenian students aspiring to become attorneys to successful alumni within their community. A proud double Bruin, Betty later attended UCLA School of Law, where she obtained her Juris Doctorate. As a law student, Betty’s professor recognized her articulate writing abilities and selected her as a Legal Research and Writing Advisor for first...

Ms. Schimmel’s practice is dedicated to employment litigation matters on behalf of California employees. More than half of Ms. Schimmel’s experience has been focused on representing employees in wage and hour class and representative actions for labor code violations (including, but not limited to, claims unpaid overtime, minimum wages, expense reimbursement, meal and rest period), as well as consumer and privacy right matters. Ms. Schimmel’s experience also includes representing employees in wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and retaliation matters against employers who violate California law. She has successfully prosecuted and resolved hundreds of cases. Prior to joining Blackstone, Ms. Schimmel...

Alex is a Senior Associate Attorney at Blackstone Law. Alex is an active member of the legal community as it relates to employees’ rights. Alex is a member of the California Employment Lawyers’ Association (CELA), and is on the committee for the Mentor Committee, the Women’s Committee, the Legislative Committee, the Wage and Hour Committee, and the New Member Committee, as well as a recent admit to the 2024 – 2025 CELA Leadership Conservatory. Alex has significant experience providing the best counsel for his clients, whether through trial, or through multimillion dollar settlements, or through whatever need the client may describe....

P.J. Van Ert is a seasoned trial lawyer and civil litigator specializing in class actions and individual employment matters. As a Blackstone law associate she dedicates her practice to California employees. After more than 75 criminal jury trials during thirteen years as a deputy district attorney, she transitioned to civil litigation and found her way to Blackstone. From wage and hour theft to sexual harassment and hostile work environment, she is able to utilize her years of zealously advocating for victims of crime to get superior results in employment cases. Ms. Van Ert has earned guilty verdicts in lengthy homicide...

In 1991, after graduating near the top of his class, an insurance company hired Paul Zuckerman to be their lawyer. Paul approached the job with optimism. He believed the company’s advertisement and thought that he was hired to be there, like a good neighbor, for policyholders in need. However, Paul soon discovered that his work was merely padding the pockets of his employer, and not ensuring that injured people were compensated fairly. Thus, Paul, with his law school classmate John Carpenter, established a new kind of law firm: A law firm that only represents injured people against insurance companies. Paul...

Attorney Hines represents employees with claims against their employers for harassment, discrimination, retaliation and Labor Code violations.

Mr. Saba’s practice consists of prosecuting and defending individual, class action and mass action claims. He has considerable experience in a wide range of federal and state civil litigation and trial actions, including consumer litigation, employment litigation, women’s rights, complex business and entertainment disputes, catastrophic injury claims, professional responsibility, copyright/trademark, civil rights, maritime, and municipal, landowner and product liability.

David Spivak is a Southern California employee rights litigator. From offices based in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles, David Spivak has been fighting for the rights of California workers since 1995. He has obtained several million dollars in recoveries for his clients. Mr. Spivak's areas of concentration in labor and employment law include: Wrongful Termination, Constructive Discharge, and Public Policy Violations Discrimination Harassment Retaliation & Whistleblowers Employment Contracts & Severance Agreements Defamation of Character (Slander & Libel) Unpaid Overtime Wages Unpaid Minimum Wages Unprovided Rest Breaks and Meal Periods Failure to Pay Work-Related Expenses Medical & Family Leave...

With more than 20 years of experience, Tre Lovell has been noted among the elite trial lawyers in the nation, having been named "Lawyer of the Year" Finalist, 2016, by the Los Angeles Business Journal, and further honored by The National Law Journal as one of the Top 50 Litigation Trailblazers in the United States. Mr. Lovell has been recognized among the top 1% of attorneys in the country as a litigator through such esteemed organizations as America's Top 100 Attorneys, Distinguished Justice Advocates, National Academy of Jurisprudence, Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum and Rue's Best Attorneys of America. In addition,...

Joana Fang is a Senior Associate Attorney with expertise in class action, employment litigation, personal injury, insurance litigation, and consumer protection laws. Ms. Fang has extensive experience in case management and all aspects of litigation, from drafting complaints to engaging in the discovery process, settlement negotiations, and preparing for trial. During her legal career, she has recovered millions of dollars for her clients. Ms. Fang is also a prolific writer who has written and published numerous articles on Law360, The Recorder, and Daily Journal. She has also led seminars on using depositions at trial and on litigating sexual abuse cases against schools...

Ken Ruttenberg is the founder of The Ruttenberg Law Firm, P.C.. He is an experienced and seasoned civil litigator in a broad range of legal areas including employment, construction and personal injury.

In 2014 through 2017, Ken was selected to the list of Southern California Super Lawyers, a rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Fewer than five percent of attorneys receive the Super Lawyers recognition. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, Ken was named among the Top 100 Southern California Super Lawyers. Ken is also an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review...