Practice Areas

Counseling and Advice

Walraven & Lehman LLP provides counseling and advice on a wide variety of labor, employment and employee benefits issues including:

• Hiring, Managing and Terminating Employees

We have extensive experience in counseling employers how to hire, manage, and terminate  employees while minimizing legal exposure and maximizing business objectives.  We assist our clients with all facets of the employment relationship, ranging from employment applications, background checks, drug tests, medical inquiries, performance evaluations, employee discipline, and terminations.  In our 25 years of collective experience, we have seen it all, and we put this experience to work for our clients.

We have counseled hundreds of employers in preventing and remedying discrimination and harassment claims.  We regularly assist our clients to identify and respond to discrimination and harassment complaints.  We also provide management training on preventing, recognizing, and responding to discrimination and harassment complaints.

California employers are faced with a myriad of wage and hour issues ranging from correctly classifying employees as exempt or non-exempt to complying with statutory meal and rest period obligations.  We work with our clients to identify wage and hour issues that may exist and remedy them before they become litigation.

Employers must  comply with a complex web  of leave of absence laws and requirements to accommodate disabled employees in the workplace.  We have extensive experience in managing disability and leave laws, and we can help you navigate through these difficult issues.  We can also develop leave of absence policies and procedures that will ensure your compliance with federal and state laws.

We have extensive traditional labor law experience covering all facets of labor law.  We regularly counsel clients on ensuring that employees continue to maintain their direct relationship with management, responding to petitions for certification, and handling grievances and arbitrations.  We also have significant experience in negotiating collective bargaining agreements on behalf of our clients.

Developments in the corporate regulatory landscape (Sarbanes-Oxley) and litigation risk management continue to require corporate employers to conduct thorough  investigations of alleged employee misconduct.  We have conducted numerous investigations on matters including sexual harassment, racial harassment, executive financial misconduct, trade secret misappropriation, and conflicts of interest transactions.  We can assist our clients by counseling them on the facets of conducting their own internal investigation or conducting the investigation for them.

We regularly assist our clients in protecting their valuable trade secrets from misappropriation, ensuring they maintain their intellectual property, and protecting against claims of unfair competition. 

We regularly counsel clients on conducting lay-offs and restructuring in compliance with all applicable laws, including WARN and Cal-WARN.

We conduct comprehensive employee law audits to ensure our clients’ legal compliance with all applicable labor and employment laws.  We customize our audits to each client’s specific needs.  Such regular audits allow our clients to reduce litigation risk and ensure legal compliance within the ever changing labor and employment landscape in California.

We have drafted dozens of employee handbooks, personnel policies and procedures for clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to pro bono clients.  We have the substantive expertise to efficiently review your existing personnel policies or to create employee handbooks and personnel policies and procedures individually tailored to your business needs.

We assist clients in documenting all facets of the employment relationship, ranging from offer letters to employment agreements and separation agreements.  We regularly assist clients with the development of severance plans and related documents.

We regularly assist clients with employee benefits issues, including structuring of benefit plans, management of employee benefits issues, and resolution of employee benefits claims.