Renuka V. Jain 

Renuka V. Jain represents employees suing employers, especially those alleging sexual, racial or other kinds of discrimination. She has been litigating for employees for close to 30 years, and for half of that time, she did it in Texas.

“To try cases in Texas representing employees, you’ve got to be able to figure out an angle,” Jain said. “I take challenging cases.”

Challenging cases are her favorite, she said. For instance, a couple of years ago, she represented a client who had signed a severance agreement, cashed the check and spent the money. She succeeded for the client without filing a lawsuit, she said. “I literally did that by breaking down that termination meeting minute by minute.”

Jain said she also likes to represent clients that other attorneys have said no to. She did that a decade ago in the first case that gained her some fame in Los Angeles.

She represented a high school teacher who had lost his certification to teach Junior ROTC, his job and his teaching credential after a dispute with the principal about the military training program. A jury awarded her client $3.35 million for retaliation and defamation. Roundtree v. Los Angeles Unified School District, BC499893 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 24, 2013).

After news of that verdict, would-be clients began showing up in her lobby without appointments. About 400 people called wanting to hire her to sue a school, she said.

She finally accepted one of those clients in 2017. He was a high school principal fired after being accused falsely of changing grades. The initial trial in 2020 was shut down by the pandemic but only after school attorneys allegedly suggested he was under investigation for child abuse.

In the second trial, Jain brought in a jury verdict of $2.5 million for her client, all in noneconomic damages. The case is now on appeal. Camp v. Los Angeles Unified School District, B321227 (DCA 2nd, filed May 20, 2022).

Currently, Jain is representing two lawyers in a pre-litigation matter against their former employer. She can’t describe it except to say it has “some very unique facts. … It’s not a usual employment case. It’s not like anything I have ever done before.”

Of course, not all her cases are extremely challenging. Late last year, Jain represented a 56-year-old Black termite inspector who was fired by his former employer after being “terrorized” and physically threatened by a White supervisor. The woman told him that she wanted to “drop kick [him] in the head,” that she had guns and that she could kill him so that “no one will know how it happened,” according to his complaint. Fontenette v. Clark Pest Control, 20STCV25263 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 6, 2020).

The case settled in September, about two weeks after Jain defeated the defendants’ summary judgment motion, according to court records.

—Don DeBenedictis