Thursday, April 10, 2008

Mary Lee Wegner - Employment Counsel

Mary Lee Wegner is an employment lawyer with more than 21 years of experience litigating employment cases and advising employers and employees about their respective workplace obligations.

Her current practice focuses heavily on employment counseling, investigation of harassment, discrimination, retaliation and other allegations, and pre-litigation resolution of employment claims. She also drafts and negotiates employment and separation agreements and provides training to individuals and groups regarding harassment and discrimination prevention, anger management and techniques for improved management and communication skills.

Ms. Wegner spent several years as a commercial and employment litigator with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and then moved in-house to provide counsel to ABC, Inc. and Occidental Petroleum Corporation. More recently, she was a partner at Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan from 1998 to 2006, until she decided to form her own practice in 2007 focusing primarily on employment counseling, training and investigations.

While at ABC and Occidental Petroleum, Ms. Wegner supervised litigation, managed outside counsel, responded to EEOC and DFEH complaints, conducted internal harassment, discrimination and other EEO investigations, worked closely with human resources professionals to develop, draft and revise employment policies and provided a substantial amount of employment counseling and advice. In private practice, Ms. Wegner has tried cases and argued appeals, handled DFEH and EEOC claims, investigated and advised employers about harassment, discrimination and retaliation claims, drafted handbooks for, and provided employment counseling to, companies of all sizes, negotiated and drafted employment agreements and severance packages, negotiated with state and federal EEO and other agencies and handled a number of mediations and arbitrations involving both employment and complex commercial issues.

Ms. Wegner lectures frequently in the area of employment law and has conducted a number of training sessions for clients regarding sexual harassment and discrimination prevention, diversity issues, anger management, ways to improve management skills and communication and other employment topics. She is also the co-author of a chapter on trial preparation and procedure for the Rutter Group publication entitled, “California Practice Guide: Employment Litigation."

Employment Counsel & Attorney