J. Bernard Alexander III 

J. Bernard Alexander III is a trial lawyer and the founder of Alexander Morrison + Fehr LLP, where he represents plaintiffs in labor and employment cases.

He often works within an informal network of small firm practitioners whom he’s met through his years in practice and his active involvement in the California Employment Lawyer Association. He’s been the group’s chair, a board member and the founder and manager of its trial college.

“I got to know people,” he said. “Lots of them know I can come in to try cases at the last minute.”

Alexander spoke in late June, just after having won a $3.35 million jury verdict for two female lawyers — one African American, one Asian American — who claimed retaliation, discrimination and a hostile work environment in the general counsel’s office at a Northern California utility district. Pierce et al. v. East Bay Municipal Utility District, 3:21-cv-04325 (N.D. Cal., filed June 7, 2021).

“Lots of lawyers are really good at working up a case, but if it doesn’t settle within two or three months of the trial date, sometimes they call me,” Alexander said. For clients Saji Pierce and Ayriel Bland, attorneys Pamela Y. Price and P. Bobby Shukla had honed their claims against East Bay MUD. But then Price was elected

Alameda County District Attorney and Shukla got in touch with Alexander.

“I’d just finished with the Mchaar case with Bryan Schwartz,” Alexander said, naming a matter in San Jose in which he’d partnered with an Oakland attorney and obtained a $2 million verdict for Younes Mchaar, a deaf part-time package handler for a shipping company who was allegedly denied reasonable accommodation. Mchaar v. FedEx Ground Package System Inc. et al., 20CV366279 (Santa Clara Co. Super. Ct., filed April 27, 2020).

“I was tired and I thought I’d turn down the Pierce case,” Alexander said. “But then I read the facts and saw what a worthwhile matter it really was.”

The Pierce matter was tricky because it involved attorneys. “Lawyers typically do not make sympathetic plaintiffs,” Alexander said. “The last case I lost involved an attorney plaintiff, and I try to avoid them.”

Meanwhile, Alexander is struggling to recoup from the litigation roadblocks he’s faced since a federal judge slashed as “unconstitutionally large” $136.9 million verdict he and co-counsel obtained on racial harassment claims for client Owen Diaz, an African American, against his former employer, Tesla Inc. At a damages retrial, the jury awarded $3.2 million. Alexander is petitioning for a new trial, asserting the defense committed serious misconduct, including slurs against Diaz. Diaz et al. v. Tesla, Inc., 3:17-cv-05748 (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 22, 2017).

A hearing on the new trial motion is set for late July. “We faced a series of underhanded, low-road attacks,” Alexander said. “I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth on this one.”

—John Roemer