Protecting Employees in the Workplace – 101

Maria C. Rodriguez | McDermott Will & Emery

Maria C. Rodriguez advises US and international corporations with regard to employment law compliance and mergers and acquisitions, and defends employment cases and class action litigation. She is a trusted advisor to clients helping them avoid or resolve disputes and protect resources through proactive and strategic planning. Maria is experienced working with clients in the sports, media and entertainment, technology, food and restaurant, airline, transportation and distribution, healthcare and fashion industries.

Maria advises on and defends against class, collective, representative and individual claims arising under state and federal employment laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Her litigation experience includes wage-and-hour, harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, breach of employment contract, unlawful business practices, non solicitation, trade secrets and other employment-related cases.

She has successfully litigated dismissals by way of, early motions to dismiss, summary judgment and leveraging cases early to produce nuisance value resolutions. At trial, she has produced wins in multiple-plaintiff wage-and-hour, retaliation, discrimination, and wrongful termination cases and achieved a defense verdict in a high-profile, eight-week jury trial involving UNRUH civil rights claims brought by 26 plaintiffs against eight defendants.

Maria has extensive knowledge in the complexities involved in doing business in California, across the United States, and abroad, and her fluency in Spanish supports her work with Spanish and Latin America based clients. She defends employers in proceedings before governmental agencies, such as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the California Labor Commissioner, the US Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and city and state government agencies that enforce employment.

Maria serves as the global co-head of McDermott’s Employment Practice Group.

Yesenia M. Gallegos | McDermott Will & Emery

Yesenia M. Gallegos is the co-office managing partner for McDermott’s Southern California offices and a partner in the Firm’s Employment Practice Group. She has over two decades of litigation experience representing employers in wage and hour class actions, Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class actions, California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) representative actions, embezzlement disputes, restrictive covenants, and also defends against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims.

She is also an experienced counselor who provides strategic advice to employers and the C-Suite on mitigating risk in mergers and acquisitions, pay equity, executive compensation and executive employment agreements, employment investigations, enforcement or avoidance of restrictive covenants, managing leaves of absence, and reductions in force.

Yesenia advises an array of domestic and international companies, from small business owners to Fortune 500 companies. She assists employers in establishing work rules and registering such with local labor regulatory agencies in Latin American countries.

She also conducts and oversees workplace harassment and discrimination investigations and conducts wage and hour audits. Yesenia provides organizations with English and Spanish training on sexual harassment prevention; employment law for managers and supervisors; compliance with California wage and hour law; and the interplay between disability law, reasonable accommodations, and leaves of absence.

Yesenia is a frequent author and speaker on labor and employment topics, including those pertaining to the defense of wage and hour class actions and California PAGA representative actions and restrictive covenants. She also often speaks on diversity topics in the legal profession.

Megan A. Lee | McDermott Will & Emery

Megan A. Lee focuses her practice on labor and employment matters.

While in law school, Megan served as a board member for the Womxn of Color Collective and graduated with Moot Court Honors.

I. Workplace violence prevention | 1:00pm – 1:40pm

• Federal regulations
  • Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and General Duty Clause
• State-specific laws on workplace violence prevention
  • Industry specific guidelines (e.g., healthcare, education, retail, construction)
  • California’s new workplace violence prevention mandate
  • NY new workplace violence prevention law
  • Other states?
• Developing a workplace violence prevention plan
  • Policy statement on zero tolerance for violence
  • Risk assessment and hazard identification
  • Incident response protocols
  • Establishing clear roles and responsibilities
  • Tailoring the plan to specific workplace needs
  • Incident response and post-incident actions
• Training and education for employees and management
  • Mandatory training topics
  • Scenario-based training

II. Immigration enforcement for employers (Part I) | 1:40pm – 2:00pm

• Preparing for workplace raids
  • Response plans
  • Employee training

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

III. Immigration enforcement for employers (Part II) | 2:10pm – 2:30pm

• Annual audits
  • Preparing for a paper audit
  • Best practices
• DOL and ICE enforcement interconnectivity
  • Staffing company immigration issues
  • Best practices

IV. The future of DEI | 2:30pm – 3:10pm

• The rescission of Executive Order 11246 and other diversity executive orders
  • “Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity” Executive Order
  • Possible False Claims Act claims
• Legal v. illegal diversity programs
  • Navigating Title VII protections for LGBTQ+ workers
  • Legal DEI measures
  • Best practices for messaging, hiring, and retention