INTRODUCING

Jorge Aguilar II is a Deputy Attorney General with the Employment and Administrative Mandate Section of the California Office of the Attorney General. Mr. Aguilar represents state agencies in employment litigation, class actions, and taxpayer actions. Prior to joining the California Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Aguilar worked at a labor and employment defense firm where he represented employers in wage and hour class actions in both state and federal courts. Mr. Aguilar also practiced at a plaintiff-side employment litigation firm in Oakland. He began his legal career as a staff attorney at the Eviction Defense Center, a non-profit that represents low-income and indigent tenants. In 2007, Mr. Aguilar received the Jack Berman Award of Achievement for distinguished service to the profession and public. Mr. Aguilar is a graduate of Washington and Lee University School of Law, where he was the Executive Editor of the Race and Ethnic Ancestry Law Journal (now titled the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice).

Adrianne De Castro is a Senior Associate at the Desai Law Firm, P.C. in Orange County. Her practice focuses exclusively on plaintiff-side employment and consumer class actions. Ms. De Castro has extensive experience representing workers in employment discrimination cases on account of age, pregnancy, disability, gender, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, and wage and hour claims.

Over the last few years, she has devoted significant time to litigating wage and hour class actions on behalf of truck drivers, leading to published decisions advancing the rights of truck drivers in the state of California. See Cardenas v. McLane Foodservice, Inc., 796 F. Supp. 2d 1246 (C.D. Cal. 2011). See also Shook v. Indian River Transport Co., No. 1:14-1415 WBS BAM, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174395 (E.D. Cal. Dec 14, 2014); Aguirre v. Genesis Logistics, No. SACV 12-00687 JVS, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189820 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 30, 2013).

Prior to joining the Desai Law Firm, P.C., Ms. De Castro was an associate at the law firm of Mower, Carreon, and Desai LLP, where she litigated wage and hour and consumer class actions on behalf of restaurant workers, home health care workers, and California consumers. Ms. De Castro also worked as an associate at the law firm of Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff, and Lowe in San Francisco, where she focused on individual employment discrimination cases and wage and hour class actions. Ms. De Castro began her career as the Ruth Chance Law Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates, where she spent two years representing low-wage women workers in sexual harassment and discrimination cases.