Hi, I'm Tony Lewis.

Here is a summary of my background, training, education, and experience, and I welcome you to contact me if you would like any additional information:

 

• Over 25 year of experience representing employees, employers, and employment practices liability insurers

• Employer representation experience as (1) associate and senior counsel at an international law firm ranked in the top ten of Chambers USA for national labor and employment law defense firms at the time, and (2) partner in a California statewide labor and employment boutique defense firm

• Employee representation experience as a sole proprietor in my own firm

• Employment practices liability insurer representation experience in a private firm where I represented various domestic and London market underwriters and underwriting syndicates as claims counsel. In that role, I assessed coverage, evaluated risk and liability exposures, set reserves, retained counsel for the insureds, managed the defense of claims throughout the nation, and represented insurers at mediations where coverage was implicated.  

• Selected as a Southern California "Super Lawyer" in Employment and Labor Law (2025)

• I have actual trial experience on both the employee and employer sides. My trial experience includes bench, jury, and arbitration trials. I have trial experience in both state and federal courts, and most of my trials have been as solo or lead trial counsel in jury trials. I am an alumnus of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's rigorous Traditional Trial Advocacy Project ("t-Tap"), through which I served a secondment from my sponsoring firm as a prosecutor for the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.

• I earned my law degree from Northwestern University School of Law (J.D. 1999), my master's degree with a specialization in organization management from Florida State University (M.P.A. 1996), and my bachelor's degree from New College of Florida (1994).

• I have over 23 years of experience in employment dispute mediations. I have doctoral level training (as a master's student) in organizational development and administrative behavior, where I had formal training in negotiating organizational conflicts and change management, in addition to master's level training in human resources management. At Northwestern Law, I successfully completed the Negotiations training course offered jointly with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and part of the law school's Clinical Trial Advocacy program. I am an alumnus of the Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution--Pepperdine University's world renowned "Mediating the Litigated Case" mediator training program (2017). I have been an attorney participant in the Los Angeles Superior Court's "CRASH" and "mini-CRASH" programs for resolving employment cases pending in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

• I am a Certificate Holder with the Association of Workplace Investigators, having successfully completed the association's training program that is considered the gold standard for training workplace investigators, which provides me an excellent perspective on common issues that arise regarding the adequacy of employer investigations. 

• I have represented many clients in appeals in Illinois, Florida, and California, and I am a former member of the Appellate Lawyers Assocation.

• I have been admitted to practice law in Illinois (1999, inactive), Florida (2002), and California (2005). I have been admitted to practice in five different federal district courts. I have represented clients in thousands of employment matters spanning 22 states and four foreign countries.

• My employment law experience includes civil rights (including virtually all types of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and accommodation); traditional labor, wage and hour; employee mobility; trade secrets and other intellectual property disputes between employers and employees; employment contract and quasi-contractual claims; fraud; workplace violence; authoring, modifying, and counseling employer policies and procedures (including drafting employee handbooks), and completing affirmative action plan requirements (including utilization analysis) in governmental procurement processes. I have managed the employment law due diligence in mergers and acquisitions for corporations in the entertainment and automotive manufacturing industries, as well as conducted various types of employment practices audits. I also have the very rare experience of being part of a team representing an "employee pool" in a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation of an international financial corporation.    

• I have been a frequent presenter and/or panelist for legal education, including:

  • Sexual Harassment Prevention Training (multiple presentations)

  • Judge, American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Student Trial Advocacy Competition

  • Using Discovery at Trial, California Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Section Annual Meeting

  • Defense Perspectives on Employment Law, California Employment Lawyers Association 

  • Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation, Los Angeles County Bar Association Saturday Morning Seminar 

  • Wage and Hour Law, Pasadena Bar Association 

  • Comparative Employment Laws of China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and India, Presentation to In-house Counsel for a major global corporation

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