Camilo Echavarria 

Camilo Echavarria is the Davis Wright Tremaine LLP partner in charge of the firm's Los Angeles office and its new Culver City outpost. In April 2023, he became the first Latino elected chair of the executive committee.

"We opened Culver City to be closer to our tech clients such as HBO, Apple and Amazon Studios," he said. "Even though the tech industry is going through a bump right now, we do both transaction work and litigation, and in down times, litigation goes up."

Echavarria oversaw all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the firm and served in leadership roles at the Hispanic National Bar Association, the California Minority Counsel Program and other groups. He received a Latino Leadership Award from the Profiles in Diversity Journal in 2023.

"Davis Wright Tremaine remains committed to a diversified workforce," he said. Despite recent pushback against DEI initiatives, "Our commitment is not going to change because it results in better service, especially to our employment clients, where it gives us better insight in evaluating and understanding diverse plaintiffs."

Echavarria joined the firm in 2006. A prominent employment litigator, he manages the defense of many of the firm's single-plaintiff employment cases. Clients include Providence Health & Services, Bank of America Corp., Dollar Tree, Inc., United Airlines, Inc. and Princess Cruises.

He represents a leading medical center against allegations of discrimination, retaliation and harassment filed by a manager over her work during her pregnancy during the pandemic. Javanmardi v. John Wayne Cancer Institute et al., 20STCV36367 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 23, 2020).

"Pregnancy cases have a lot of nuances," Echavarria said. "This one was related to her work from home and getting accommodation during very important cancer research, some of which involved the requirement that she come into work to run the lab." The matter was eventually resolved during mediation. "We reached a confidential settlement that was satisfactory to all," he said.

And Echavarria represents a health system defending against a wrongful termination claim by a former physician who alleged disability discrimination, failure to accommodate and wrongful termination, plus conspiracy and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. The plaintiff claimed she was wrongfully terminated after she suffered from alcoholism and had her license suspended by the state medical board. Hierro v. Providence St. John's Medical Foundation et al., 20SMCV00365 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Mar. 4, 2020).

"We successfully moved the matter to arbitration," Echavarria said. "The question became whether the employer needed to accommodate alcohol consumption."

He added, "You're an investigator and an evaluator. I do enjoy being both. It's all about people and relationships."

--John Roemer