Courtney C. McNicholas

Courtney McNicholas exclusively represents Los Angeles police officers, sheriff's deputies and firefighters who've faced harassment, discrimination, and retaliation while on the job. Law enforcement and firefighting agencies are conventionally tight-knit and close-lipped. Once an officer has reached the point of filing an employment lawsuit, "they have no place else to go and nothing else to lose," McNicholas said.

"That's the power of the badge," she continued.

McNicholas' current caseload includes representing a Los Angeles K-9 handler and police officer in a complaint alleging his supervisors made offensive comments about his Samoan ethnicity. When he reported the slurs, his K-9 supervisors allegedly retaliated by kicking him out of the unit, taking his police dog and demoting him to desk duty. Sauvao v. City of Los Angeles, et al., BC707968 (L.A. Sup. Ct., filed May 29, 2018.) The matter awaits a potential July 2022 jury trial.

McNicholas has known she wanted to be a lawyer since the summer she was ten years old. She had misbehaved, so as "punishment" her father, trial attorney John McNicholas, took her along to watch closing arguments on a case. She was immediately taken with the idea of defending people against powerful institutions.

McNicholas now practices at the Los Angeles-based firm McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP alongside her father, brothers Matthew McNicholas and Patrick McNicholas alongside a cadre of trial lawyers versed in employment law, class actions, catastrophic personal injury and product liability issues.

She's also a mediator, judge pro tempore, and arbitrator for the California Superior Court as needed.

"I love a good challenge," McNicholas said. "The most difficult challenges are also the most rewarding when you pour your heart and soul into it. Being a female trial attorney is a rare breed. You can't back down."

- JenniferMcEntee