Message from the Chair

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 2
• Publication year: 2017
• Author: By Bryan Schwartz
• topic: Business of Law,Civil Rights,Constitutional Law,Labor Law

Message from the Chair

By Bryan Schwartz

Bryan Schwartz is Chair of the State Bar of California's Labor and Employment Law Section. His firm is Bryan Schwartz Law (www.BryanSchwartzLaw.com) in Oakland, representing workers in wage-and-hour, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower retaliation, and other types of individual, class, and multi-plaintiff actions in federal and state courts and a variety of administrative fora. He serves also on the boards of the California Employment Lawyers Association, the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, and FAIR (www.fair-foundation.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing diversity in the employment bar.

Vital Signs of the Rule of Law in California's Workplaces

Home late again from an out-of-town deposition, I lie very silently next to my three-year-old son and smile to hear him breathing. Cracking open the door of my daughter's bedroom, I feel relieved to see her shift slightly while sleeping. I head to bed and listen for my loving partner's heartbeat.

These are the vital signs—the breathing, the gentle movement, the heartbeat. The deposition also—and the many hours it took to prepare for it, the documents my opposing counsel gathered...