The Employee Matters

Talking about what matters to Employees

Déjà vu? LVBH attorneys once again named to Northern California Super Lawyers list

Levy Vinick Burrell Hyams LLP is proud to announce that, once again, the majority of our attorneys have been selected for the prestigious 2023 Super Lawyers list, published in Super Lawyers Magazine. Partners Sharon Vinick, Jean Hyams and Darci Burrell made the list, along with Of Counsel attorneys Rebecca Kagin, and Wendy Musell.

Also, for the seventh consecutive year, Rachel Terp, Of Counsel to the firm, was selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star, which recognizes excellence in attorneys in their first decade of law practice.

Each year, no more than five percent of the lawyers in the state are selected by the research team at Super Lawyers to receive the Super Lawyers recognition. And no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the state are selected as Rising Stars.

Even with such a small percentage of attorneys around the state featured annually on the Super Lawyers list, the honor has been bestowed multiple times on the attorneys of LVBH. This is the nineteenth year Jean Hyams has been named to the Super Lawyers list, the seventeenth year for Sharon Vinick, the eleventh year for Darci Burrell, the eighth year for Wendy Musell, and the seventh year for Rebecca Kagin.

We like to think our our lawyers as Super Sheroes, so this recognition from Super Lawyers fits right into the theme.

Super Lawyers rates outstanding lawyers from multiple practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area.

LVBH is rightfully proud of its consistent record of excellence, as evidenced by recognition year after year on the Super Lawyers list.

Northern California’s Top 100 Super Lawyers List includes three from LVBH!

Levy Vinick Burrell Hyams LLP Partners Jean Hyams and Sharon Vinick, in addition to Of Counsel attorney Wendy Musell, were named to the prestigious 2023 Top 100 Super Lawyers list for Northern California. All three were also selected to the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers for Northern California.

LVBH is one of very few firms, and even fewer boutique firms, to have multiple lawyers make the “Top 100” list. To arrive at its “top” lists, Super Lawyers conducts a multi-phase peer nomination process in which attorneys are ranked by their peers, a Blue Ribbon panel that conducts furrther review, and independent research to identify the most outstanding lawyers from multiple practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

LVBH is extremely proud of the accomplishments of all our attorneys and for the recognition of their excellent track record.

Rebecca Kagin selected for Sonoma Magazine’s Lawyers of Excellence Two Years in a Row

LVBH is proud to announce that Of Counsel attorney Rebecca G. Kagin has been included in Sonoma Magazine’s Lawyers of Excellence list for two years in a row – 2021, the inaugural year for the selection, and 2022.

From the Magazine, about this honor:

“Sonoma Magazine is proud to spotlight the many accomplished attorneys of our community in this list of Lawyers of Excellence. Recommended and chosen by their peers, these lawyers exemplify the exceptional legal talent available throughout the Sonoma County region.

Sonoma Magazine partnered with a third-party research, data collection and verification firm to conduct a survey of licensed lawyers in our region, soliciting their peer recommendations of lawyers by practice area. All names collected were tallied and then vetted with state regulatory board information and other data sources to produce the 2022 Lawyers of Excellence list. Inclusion in the list is based on the opinions of responding lawyers, and no one can pay to be included.

With more than 2,500 lawyers practicing in our five-county region, we recognize this list represents a small sample of excellent lawyers available to our readers for their business and personal needs. Lawyers of Excellence is meant to serve as an informal local guide to lawyers who are recommended by those in the know, other lawyers.”

Google’s destruction of evidence draws comment from Wendy Musell in The Register

Close up photo of fire. — Photo by Raquel Raclette on Unsplash

LVBH attorney Wendy Musell was interviewed for an article by The Register, a global online technology news publication, regarding Google employees’ willfully destroying evidence in the Android antitrust case. The issue at hand concerns a feature within Google Chat that allows for conversations to be automatically deleted after 24 hours. Despite a litigation hold being in place, employees were continuing to set the feature so that chats would not be retained.

In the article, Wendy states, “if the facts are as they’re portrayed in the briefing, it’s extremely disconcerting, and I would not want to be Google’s counsel today.”

“If they had a legal duty to preserve evidence, and they are intentionally destroying evidence, and also ensuring that evidence is automatically deleted after 24 hours, I think that’s going to be extremely difficult to explain to a judge,” she continued.

Ms. Musell’s observation was prescient, as the judge in the case sanctioned Google, finding that Google not only failed to adequately preserve records but also took steps to undermine the litigation.

Fair Housing Council honors Leslie Levy with Unsung Heroine Award for pioneering work to combat sexual harassment in housing

February 17, 2023 – The Fair Housing Council of San Diego has announced Leslie Levy as a recipient of the 2023 Unsung Heroine Award, which will be presented during their annual Fair Housing Laws and Litigation Conference. In the Council’s statement announcing this honor, Executive Director Mary Scott Knoll said:

“In the beginning, there was Leslie Levy, a young, brilliant attorney, unpretentious in manner, fierce in her advocacy for and support of women’s civil rights and a pioneer in the truest sense of the word, cracking brick walls with breakthroughs in the field of sexual harassment, working tirelessly and litigating flawlessly on behalf of sexual harassment victims. You set the early pace for the race towards justice for these victims.”

Please join Levy Vinick Burrell Hyams LLP in congratulating Leslie for this well-deserved award.

CEB Features Jean Hyams Speaking on Implicit Bias and Jury Selection

LVBH partner Jean Hyams is featured in the on-demand course “Dealing with Juror Implicit Bias” currently listed on the CEB CLE Library. Ms. Hyams, along with jury consultant Sonia Chopra, discusses the challenges of dealing with juror bias as well as methods to address it, including strategies for reducing the impact of juror bias in the legal system.

The webinar, recorded on January 30, 2023, covers best approaches to voir dire, implicit association tests, attorney biases/stereotyping in jury selection, and how implicit bias impacts perceptions of witness credibility, among others. The course offers both Implicit Bias credit and Elimination of Bias credit.

Wendy Musell weighs in on gig workers as employees

Lyft driver — Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

The Register, a global online technology news publication, interviewed LVBH attorney Wendy Musell about a change proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor that would make it harder for companies to classify gig workers as independent contractors. As the article explains, the current rules rely on only two criteria to determine how a worker should be classified, while the proposed update expands the criteria for workers to prove they are employees. Since employment status confers many benefits on workers, this distinction is critical.

In the article, Wendy opines, “[f]rom a worker’s rights perspective, as well as having clarity in the workplace, this seems like a very positive move.” She added that “[t]he prior rule…only focused on certain factors and posed problems in labor litigation because it diverged from decades of precendent in prior court decisions that relied on the more nuanced analysis of worker classification.”