Pacifica attorneys represent and advise employer clients on all aspects of the employment relationship. Our experience includes “traditional” labor work—including collective bargaining, labor relations, and arbitration—employee discipline, employment discrimination advice and litigation, the reasonable accommodation process, internal investigations, and advising on workplace safety, policies and procedures, training, and professional development.
Our Labor and Employment clients include private employers (for-profit and nonprofit), school districts and educational service districts throughout Washington State; colleges and universities, and state and local government entities and officials.
Please see our School Districts practice overview for more information about our school Labor and Employment law services.
Bargaining and Union-Related Matters
We regularly engage with unions on behalf of our clients. Our experience includes:
- Bargaining labor agreements
- Advising on the enforcement of labor agreements, including responding to grievances and disputes
- Conducting disciplinary investigations, including advising on Weingarten and Loudermill rights
- Advising on the disciplinary process and termination proceedings
- Engaging in settlement discussions
Accommodations and Recruiting
Pacifica attorneys have engaged extensively with the reasonable accommodation process, and have helped clients design—and, when necessary, defend—inclusive hiring practices.
Pacifica attorneys frequently represent government employers in litigation related to employee speech and other constitutional issues that arise in the public employment context. And Pacifica has significant experience in the growing area of religious accommodation under Title VII and its state-law analogues. Our successes include defending employers against more than 50 legal challenges related to emergency public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, with no plaintiff winning any form of relief against Pacifica’s clients.
