Employment Law

McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky  is consistently recognized as one of the leading employment firms in the country and has been at the forefront of the fight for employee rights for the past 30 years.  The firm literally helped create the field of employment law and has been directly involved in many of the leading and precedent setting cases.

We participated in the landmark decision of Tameny v Atlantic Richfield which was the first case in the country to recognize the tort of wrongful termination. The firm was instrumental in the development of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the workplace setting and has led the way in the application of the doctrine in the area of executive compensation and commission contracts. We won one of the first judgments in the country applying the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the workplace in Rulon-Miller v IBM and subsequently participated in the argument to California Supreme Court in Foley v Interactive Data which redefined the tort of wrongful termination and confirmed the existence of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in every employment contract.

The firm handles all forms of private sector employment cases including termination, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower, wage and hour, breach of contract and False Claims Act cases. We litigate individual cases and class actions. We have significant experience representing senior executives in the high tech world and employees in the financial services and securities industries.

Chambers USA identified McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky as the leading plaintiff side employment firm in California. The firm has been repeatedly named as a leading Northern California firm in the field of Employment Law by the Daily Journal, one of California’s preeminent legal newspapers.