1.5 Hours MCLE

Speakers

Tracey Kennedy

Tracey Kennedy is a Partner in Sheppard Mullin’s Los Angeles office and an experienced trial attorney with over 29 years of legal experience.  She has tried over 45 cases to verdict in state and federal court, including trying three wage and hour class actions to verdict, and takes several cases to trial each year nationally.  Tracey has extensive experience with labor and employment litigation involving wage and hour, wrongful termination, retaliation, discrimination, and harassment.  In addition, she provides preventive counseling to clients concerning personnel and employment matters and has experience in traditional labor matters.

Tracey has received numerous accolades including being ranked a “Leading California Employment Lawyer” by Chambers and Partners for the past ten years, a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation, a “Top Labor and Employment Attorney” by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a “Client Service All-Star” by The BTI Consulting Group, and was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2016.

Erin Pulaski

Erin Pulaski is a partner at Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe LLP, long recognized as one of California’s leading law firms specializing in the representation of individuals and classes in employment disputes. 

Ms. Pulaski represents employees and executives in all aspects of individual and class action employment litigation. She has recovered tens of millions of dollars in damages for her clients. She has been an active member of numerous successful trial and arbitration teams in recent years, including several individual employment cases that resulted in $1 million-plus judgments.

She serves as a Contributing Editor of The Rutter Group’s California Practice Guide: Employment Litigation, and has authored or co-authored articles for publications such as the Daily Journal and CELA Voice. She is frequently invited to speak on employment law issues.

Prior to joining Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, Ms. Pulaski worked as an attorney at Los Angeles employment and civil rights firm Schonbrun Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP. She also served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

She graduated Order of the Coif from Berkeley Law.

Andrew H. Friedman

Andrew H. Friedman, a name partner with the law firm of Helmer · Friedman LLP, primarily represents employees in all aspects of employment law including not only individual discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and accommodation cases but also complex multi-party wage and hour class actions. Mr. Friedman received his J.D. degree from Cornell Law School and his B.A. degree in history and psychology, cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. At Cornell, Mr. Friedman was a member of the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review and a member of the Moot Court Board. Following law school, Mr. Friedman served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable John T. Nixon, United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Subsequently, Mr. Friedman was trained as an employment attorney by two of the Nation’s most prestigious management-side employment law firms – Paul, Hastings and Bryan Cave LLP.

Mr. Friedman has handled a wide range of employment-related litigation in state and federal courts. Indeed, Mr. Friedman won (with Tony Lewis of The Lewis Law Firm) a $4.1 Million jury verdict in a fraud and breach of employment contract lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court and he also prevailed (along with his law partner, Gregory D. Helmer) in a three-week sexual harassment jury trial in the Orange County Superior Court. He also settled a $2.4 Million wage and hour class action lawsuit in federal court (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California), a $1.575 Million class action discrimination lawsuit in the Orange County Superior Court and he recovered a $1.5 Million settlement in federal court (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California) in a wage and hour class action.