Speaker

Lonnie Giamela is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Fisher Phillips and a co-chair of the firm's Pay Equity practice group.  Lonnie has handled a full range of labor and employment matters, from single-plaintiff to multi-plaintiff, in both federal and state courts in California, the California Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Lonnie also has extensive experience representing local, regional and national clients in class action wage-hour lawsuits as well as representative lawsuits brought under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), having handled more than 200 such matters across the country. Lonnie also has experience as lead counsel in two wage-hour class actions that have gone to trial.  Additionally, Lonnie counsels employers on preventative measures to prevent litigation from arising on various issues including wage and hour compliance, independent contractor classification, mass layoff strategy, and management training. He has assisted in the preparation of more than 500 handbooks for clients and has developed policies and procedures manuals for both small businesses and national companies with multi-state operations.  Utilizing experiences from his family's restaurants in the San Fernando Valley, Lonnie prides himself on providing advice to the companies he represents. His prior business experience enables him to find practical, compliant legal solutions to clients’ everyday employee relations issues. Lonnie is a frequent lecturer on employment law topics and has presented over 350 seminars to various groups.