Attorney Bios

Antonio Lawson: Mr. Lawson is 1988 graduate of Harvard Law School.  Following graduation, he joined the San Francisco firm of Cooley Godward Castro Huddleson & Tatum where he remained to 1990.  From 1990 until 1995, Mr. Lawson was associated with the Oakland firm of Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak and Baller (formerly Saperstein, Seligman and Mayeda) where he specialized in the representation of claimants in employment class actions. In 1995, Mr. Lawson founded Lawson Law Offices in Oakland.  Lawson Law Offices specializes in the representation of claimants in individual and class employment discrimination cases.

Mr. Lawson has litigated discrimination class actions in state and federal court.  The cases in which he served as a principal counsel include: Ridgeway et al. Denny’s Restaurants, Inc. ($34 million recovery in public accommodations case); Haynes et al. v. Shoney’s Restaurants, Inc. ($132 million employment race case); Norman-Bloodsaw et al. v. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory et al. (privacy discrimination class action); EEOC et al. v. McKesson Water Products (race discrimination class action); Moeller et al. v. Taco Bell (pending USDC N.D. Cal., state-wide ADA class certified). Mr. Lawson has also litigated numerous wage and hour class actions; Molina v. Lexmark (denial of vacation wages, class-certified); Bell v. Cox (failure to pay overtime, class certified); Mowdy v. Beneto (failure to pay overtime, failure to provide rest and meal breaks, off the clock work); Simmons v. Evans (failure to pay overtime, failure to provide rest and meal breaks); and Spurr v. BP North America Products, Inc. (denial of second meal period).

Mr. Lawson successfully argued before the California Supreme Court in Stevenson v. Superior Court, 16 Cal.4th 880 (1997).  In Stevenson, the Supreme Court held that age discrimination in employment violates a fundamental public policy of the State of California thereby giving rise to a common law claim of age discrimination.  With the Stevenson opinion, California became one of the first states to recognize a common law claim for age discrimination.

The Impact Fund: The Impact Fund provides strategic leadership and support for litigation to achieve economic and social justice. We provide funds for impact litigation in the areas of civil rights, environmental justice, and poverty law. We offer innovative technical support, training, and expertise on issues that arise in large scale impact litigation. We serve as lead counsel, co-counsel and amicus counsel in select class action and impact litigation.

Brad Seligman: For over 30 years, Brad Seligman has been a civil rights attorney specializing in class action and individual employment and civil rights litigation. He is Executive Director of a public foundation, Impact Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance and representation for complex public interest litigation. Since 1992, it has granted over $5 million to support such litigation. From 1988-1991, he was the managing partner of the Oakland firm of Saperstein, Seligman, Mayeda and Larkin. From September 1991 until June 1994, he was of-counsel to the firm's successor, Saperstein, Mayeda and Goldstein. He was a senior Law Clerk to Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of the Eastern District of California and an extern to Justice Matthew O. Tobriner of the California Supreme Court.

He has successfully litigated over 50 civil rights class actions and countless individual employment cases including wrongful termination actions. He is lead counsel in the nationwide class action gender discrimination case against Wal-Mart Stores, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 137 (N.D.Cal.2004), en banc pending(9th Cir. 2007), which is the largest civil rights class action ever certified. He is also lead counsel in a nationwide glass ceiling gender discrimination case against Costco, Ellis v. Costco, 240 F.R.D. 627 (N.D.Cal.2007).

He successfully tried and subsequently settled the third-largest sex discrimination class action recovery in history ($107.25 million), Stender v. Lucky Stores, 803 F.Supp.259 (N.D.Cal.1992) and also settled the first major challenge to the use of psychological testing by a private employer, Soroka v. Dayton Hudson Corp, dba Target Stores. He was co-lead counsel in the then-largest Americans with Disabilities Act access settlement, Arnold v. United Artists Theatre Circuit, 158 F.R.D. 439 (N.D.Cal.1994). He settled the largest disability employment class action ever, Glover v. Potter, (EEOC 2007) recovering $61 million for a class of 7500. He represented one of the principal objectors to the Georgine class action settlement before the 3d Circuit and before the United States Supreme Court, where the standards for assessing settlement classes were handed down, Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591 (1997).

Before the California Supreme Court, he has argued, among other cases, Frye v. Tenderloin Housing Clinic, 38 Cal.4th 23 (2006), which upheld the right of nonprofit legal advocacy groups to practice law; Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v, Superior Court, 34 Cal.4th 319 (2004), which established class certification standards in overtime class actions; and City of Moorpark v. Superior Court, 18 Cal.4th 1143 (1998), a case which established that disability discrimination claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act are not preempted by the Workers’ Compensation Act.

He has served on the Board of Directors of Equal Rights Advocates and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. and also as the chair of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund Development Partnership. He was the co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Plaintiffs’ Employment Lawyers Association. He has spoken and written widely on topics of class actions, employment and public interest law, and attorneys’ fee litigation.
He has taught employment discrimination law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and Golden Gate University Law School, and taught a seminar on class action litigation at UC Hastings. He was a 1978 graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law and a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School. He was a Regent’s Lecturer at UCLA School of Law in March 2006.
He has served as the chair of the Northern District Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel and as a Northern District delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference.

The National Law Journal (June 19, 2006) has listed him among the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

The Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center: The Legal Aid Society–Employment Law Center is a nonprofit, legal services organization assisting California’s low-income working families for more than 90 years.

While our staff and Board of Directors have diverse backgrounds and experience, we share a common purpose: to protect the legal rights of low-wage earners. We believe that stable working conditions and a living wage strengthen families and communities. We help those who are most at risk of poverty to avoid the downward spiral that can come from losing a job.

Claudia Center: Claudia Center has been with the LAS–ELC since 1995. Ms. Center litigates cases that secure workplace accommodations and increase protections for workers with disabilities, and is actively involved in appellate work. She played a key role in the passage of an amendment to the FEHA that succeeded in broadening protections for persons with disabilities in employment and housing. In Fall 2001, Ms. Center argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, a case that clarified in a positive manner the scope of “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employees. In 1997, she started the LIBRA Project, a special initiative to advance the employment rights of persons with mental health conditions. Prior to coming to the LAS–ELC, Ms. Center was a staff attorney at the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) in Washington, D.C. and a recipient of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She obtained her B.A. in Government and African Studies from Wesleyan University in 1987 and her J.D. from Boalt Hall at the University of California in 1992.

Jinny Kim: Jinny Kim is a Staff Attorney in the Disability Rights Program at the LAS–ELC. Jinny joined the LAS–ELC in 1999 as the Félix Velarde-Muñoz Fellow and litigated race, disability, national origin and gender cases. Thereafter, she was a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow where she served as Labor Counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy on the Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Prior to returning on LAS=ELC in 2008 as a Staff Attorney, Jinny held positions at the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, as well as Schneider, Wallace, Cottrell, Brayton and Konecky, and Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian. Jinny received her J.D. in 1999 from the University of California, Davis and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995.

William C. McNeill. III: Bill McNeill is the Managing Attorney and Director of the Racial Equality Program at the LAS–ELC. Bill has been with the LAS–ELC since 1988 and served as the Managing Attorney since 1998. He has been involved in civil rights issues for more than 30 years, and has litigated a number of cases designed to advance the rights of minorities, including Davis v. City and County of San Francisco, which resulted in the integration of the fire department, increased opportunity for people of color in hiring and promotions, and the appointment of the first black chief in the City’s history. Bill began his legal career in 1971 as a public defender with the Roxbury Defenders Committee in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He then worked as an attorney with the Atlanta Regional Litigation Center for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as the director of the Title VII Project at the San Francisco Office of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and as regional counsel for California Rural Legal Assistance. He has received two honors from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. for his litigation work combating employment discrimination. Bill received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1971 and his A.B. in Economics from Oberlin College in 1965. He is a member of the California, Georgia, and Massachusetts Bars.

Greg Mayeda: Greg Mayeda specializes in representing employees in a wide array of employment-related disputes. His areas of practice include all types of discrimination (e.g., race, disability, age, sex, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, national origin, pregnancy, and religion); wage and hour laws (e.g., overtime); violations of privacy; violations of public policy; and negotiating and reviewing severance agreements. He also advises businesses on general legal matters.

Greg has successfully challenged employers of all sizes including, AOL, BART, Bank of the West, KFOG, and Labor Ready. Throughout his career, Greg has represented every level of employee – from administrative to executive.

Prior to establishing his own practice, Greg worked in Oakland at Siegel & LeWitter, a firm that exclusively represents employees. In 2003, Greg served as co-counsel on two race discrimination cases that resulted in more than $3.3 million in awards for his clients, including punitive damages.

Greg received a degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 and received his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.