Elizabeth Falcone is a shareholder with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. Ms. Falcone represents private and public employers in all aspects of employment law, including wage/hour matters, wrongful termination, discrimination, and harassment litigation. She has experience defending class action cases, as well as single and multi-plaintiff cases. She has tried cases for employers in state and federal courts. She also has experience in traditional labor law, including handling grievance arbitrations and collective bargaining, as well as advising employers with unionized workforces.
Based on the breadth of her experience and her achievements, in April 2016, Law360 selected Ms. Falcone from among over 1,000 nominees as one of the top lawyers in the United States under the age of 40. She was one of just 7 lawyers selected in the Employment law practice area.
Ms. Falcone has significant experience representing clients faced with putative class actions. She has litigated class action claims in many different industries, including retail, financial services, and the construction trades. She has experience leading class actions, and managing every step of the process, from pre-certification discovery involving voluminous data and documents, to settlement. Her experience includes defending against claims of misclassification for purposes of exempt status, missed meal and rest periods, adequacy of paystubs, and other wage-related claims. In one highly-publicized class action involving tens of thousands of employees, Ms. Falcone deposed several named plaintiffs, coordinated large scale preservation of documents and discovery, and prepared class certification opposition and supporting papers. She also has devised and executed large-scale discovery and declaration projects to marshal evidence for use in opposing class certification and for beating class matters on the merits.
In addition to her class action work, Ms. Falcone has represented employers at trial in various courts in California and Oregon, and in private arbitration. In addition to courtroom work, she has appeared before the United States Department of Labor, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, and the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries. She also has experience litigating against government agencies, including the EEOC and BOLI. Ms. Falcone has broad expertise in the area of disparate treatment, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, and other issues commonly raised by individual employee litigants. She provides day-to-day advice to clients on issues including wage and hour matters, leaves of absence, accommodation of disabilities, and risk management when making disciplinary decisions. Ms. Falcone has represented both public and private employers in grievance arbitrations, as well as at the bargaining table. She regularly speaks on issues including basic employment law, reasonable accommodations, wage/hour considerations, the law of harassment and workplace investigations.
