Jennifer Liu

While wage and hour disputes, discrimination and employment contracts are staples of Liu's career, she's noticing a trend that's preventing employees from making their grievances known.

She said it's typical for an employee leaving a company to sign a non-disparagement agreement. Some companies are making new hires sign them as well.

When such an agreement is made, it could leave employees powerless in trying to improve their working environment, Liu said.

"They can't complain about their pay, they can't complain about working conditions, they can't raise safety issues or fraud issues," she explained.

Arbitration agreements have also been challenging to overcome and some employers are finding new ways to get workers to consent to them, sometimes without their knowledge, Liu said.

One of her cases involves a bank she said sneaked an arbitration agreement into an incentive compensation plan document all employees were required to sign.

"Most of these people have no idea what they were signing. It basically waived their right to go to court and be part of a class action," Liu said.

Then, she added, there's the byproduct of the lack of public attention being brought to serious workplace issues because of the privacy that goes with arbitration and the hindrances against employees banding together to bring and class actions.

"My concern is that if employers continue to use arbitration agreements ... how are we really going to eradicate discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace?" she said

For now, Liu said arbitration isn't going to stop her from taking on meritorious cases.

While each arbitration is only tied to one employee at a time, she said she's willing to take on dozens of them because it won't make things any easier for the defendant either.

"Oftentimes the defendants end up regretting using or enforcing an arbitration agreement with a class waiver because it ends up being a greater headache than it would have been to defend the case in a single class action," Liu said.

-- Arin Mikailian