Abell said she spends 80 percent of her practice hours litigating cases, but more important for her in the past year is "proactive advice I provided to clients regarding the newly enacted California Fair Pay Act."
Implemented Jan. 1, 2016, the Fair Pay Act drew national attention because it changed California's pay equity standard from "equal pay for equal work" to "substantially similar" work between members of the opposite sex.
Abell has tried to stay ahead of what the defense bar claims to be confusion among courts and regulators of what "substantially similar" means. The law is critical, Abell explained.
"Intent is not an element of proof," she said. "Unjustified disparities are actionable, even where there was no intent to discriminate and the employer had not focused on the fact of the disparity."
Abell has settled two of the most prominent cases to involve Fair Pay Act allegations.
She hammered out a $4 million agreement in April with about 300 in-house lawyers and Farmers Group Inc., a deal in which the insurer promised to increase the number of women promoted to the company's top salary grades over the next three years. Coates v. Farmers Group Inc. et al., CV15-1913 (N.D. Cal., filed April 29, 2015).
And in an extraordinary move, Abell settled a pay and promotion sex discrimination case filed by 3,300 employees at Qualcomm Inc. before the case even began. A settlement was filed, along with a complaint, that provided $19.5 million to roughly 3,300 women employees. Pan et al. v. Qualcomm Inc., CV16-1885 (S.D. Cal., filed July 25, 2016).
Outside of Paul Hastings, Abell works on developing the UCLA Law Women LEAD program to promote leadership roles for women in the legal profession. Abell planned and co-chaired LEAD's first summit in February, which featured, among others, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
- Matthew Blake
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