Erin M. Pulaski

Advocating for employee rights has always been of interest to Pulaski, who prior to law school was a union representative on behalf of low wage workers.

“These are issues that have always outraged me, motivated me and driven me,” Pulaski said.

She represents employees and executives in employment litigation such as wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, harassment, wage and hour and unpaid commission claims.

Although the majority of her work is confidential, over the last year she has represented a client in a race discrimination and wrongful termination claim that resulted in a seven figure settlement; a director-level employee who was fired after complaining about discrimination against him and a group of senior employees who were laid off while on or soon after returning from maternity leave.

All resulted in favorable outcomes for her clients, according to Pulaski.

In April she successfully argued against Oracle’s motion for summary judgment in an equal pay class action, which she said is one of the first class actions to be certified under California’s new Equal Pay Act. Rong Jewett v. Oracle America, Inc., 17-CIV-02669, (San Mateo Super. Ct., filed Jun. 16, 2017).

In denying the motion, the judge lifted the discovery stay, allowing for pretrial preparation to begin for a trial set for November 2022.

She and the firm, alongside co-counsel Durie Tangri LLP and Altshuler Berzon LLP, are also drafting an opposition to a recently filed motion by Oracle to decertify the class, which she is confident the firms will be able to beat back.

“The class action procedure is going to be absolutely critical to ensuring that companies are complying with the new Equal Pay Act. Individual cases can be difficult to bring because many women don’t have concrete evidence that they’re paid less than their male peers,” Pulaski explained. “They may have a suspicion about it, but they don’t know with enough specificity that they’re ready to plow ahead with a lawsuit and we can avoid that situation in a class action because you get class wide discovery. In addition to that, I think a few individual lawsuits may not be enough to motivate companies to take all the steps that are necessary to be complying with the law.”

In addition to her active trial practice, she is the co-chair of Practicing Law Institute’s California Employment Law Conference, board member of the ACLU of Northern California, a member of the litigation committee of Equal Rights Advocates and a volunteer attorney at Legal Aid at Work.

— Kamila Knaudt