Oct. 16, 2014
Carothers, DiSante & Freudenberger LLP
See more on Carothers, DiSante & Freudenberger LLPSacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego | Labor and employment
Their client, Stearns Lending Inc., faced allegations that it had improperly recruited a group of loan originators from another mortgage company. Wulffson's job was to convince the jury that the employees had a good reason to leave.
So he showed them evidence that the company supported viewing pornography and hitting the strip club as part of its workplace culture.
"Part of their strategy was, 'Well, this sort of stuff happens everywhere,'" Wulffson said in interview. But "you don't have institutional acceptance of sexism and harassment, like in the evidence that we got to put on."
The owner of Stearns Lending, Glenn Stearns, was a strong-minded client who was willing to go to trial, Wulffson said. "The concept of another company telling him what he could and couldn't do did not sit well with him," he said.
The founding members of Carothers, DiSante & Freudenberger have a similar independent streak. Firm managing partner Marie DiSante and founding partner Tim Freudenberger left their own workplaces twenty years ago to start a statewide labor and employment boutique law firm.
They both left large full-service firms because they felt they had a novel business plan that would allow them to succeed while making time for family.
"All of us either had a family or were starting a family," Freudenberger said. "We certainly work very hard here. We have nothing against hard work. But it's kind of excessive when they want attorneys to be billing 2,500 hours a year. It cuts out life experiences and family time."
While building his practice, Freudenberger said, he also coached his children's little league teams and attended dance recitals.
DiSante said the firm continues to provide this opportunity to new hires. "We tend to be a little more flexible rather than having a set track," she said "We take everybody on a one-on-one basis to negotiate a work load that works for us."
She said it also works for clients, who get expert counsel and representation at a lower rate structure than big full-service firms charge.
"They realize it's not rocket science. It's not like you need to hire an $800-an-hour attorney to defend a gender discrimination lawsuit," she said, referencing rates at the most full-service firms. "They're not any better."
Clients range from Fortune 500 companies, which are involved in lots of litigation, to small businesses, for which the firm serves as a sort of external business partner, DiSante said. One of the largest companies the firm represents is U.S. Bank NA, which has stuck with the firm for 13 years on a single case that is headed back to trial court from the state Supreme Court later this month.
In Wulffson's case on behalf of Stearns Lending, the trial ended happily. He got a favorable jury verdict on all claims for his client in September, which started a chain reaction that ended the plaintiff's lawsuits against Stearns Lending in a handful of other counties.
"No one's ever going to sue Glenn Stearns for this again," Wulffson said. "He can say, 'If you sue me, we're going to make bleed, and it's going to take forever.'"
- Laura Hautala
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