Jenny Yelin

Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld 
• San Francisco


Work is important to people, which is why helping people with employment problems is important to Jenny Yelin.


"People have so much self-importance tied into their work," Yelin said. "Helping them through difficult situations related to their work is just really satisfying. I've always been drawn to employment law for that reason."


One profession in which work and identity are especially tied together is higher education. Yelin has represented several college professors. "I developed this niche accidentally over the years," she said. "I think that the academic work environment is one of the most challenging ones in terms of just difficult dynamics and work conditions. ... You learn a little bit about their academic discipline in the process of representing them, and that can be kind of fun too."


Currently, she is co-lead counsel representing married economics professors suing USC alleging unequal pay, gender and marital status discrimination and retaliation. The case is in discovery. Brocas v. University of Southern California, 2:23-cv-07280 (C.D. Cal., filed Sept. 1, 2023).


Yelin also represented a professor at a large university who "was denied tenure under circumstances that we thought were illegal," she said. The dispute resolved following a JAMS arbitration. In another matter, she recently helped secure a favorable settlement for a professor retaliated against over his advocacy for gender equality.


As the co-head of her firm's employment law practice, Yelin is one of the attorneys leading a class action against California's Employment Development Department alleging due process violations in how the department notifies people who have been denied unemployment insurance or assessed an overpayment penalty.


The EDD only provides notification by mail at the person's last known address, Yelin said, "and they don't make any efforts to verify that that address is still correct. So, a lot of people don't get any notice at all." Further, "the notices are written in a way that any adult would not be able to understand," she said.


After several months of settlement negotiations, talks broke down. "We are going to be actively litigating the case now," she said. Okamura v. Employment Development Department, 23CV036020 (Ala. Super. Ct., filed June 14, 2023).


Yelin has trained as a mediator and participates in the Northern District's ADR mediation panel. "I've enjoyed incorporating that into my practice," she said, "especially in employment mediations looking at the case from a neutral perspective and trying to help the parties achieve a resolution of the case."


She also mediates disputes among other employment attorneys as a volunteer for the California Employment Lawyers' Association. The group has a program intended to prevent "reverse auctions" in which one class-action attorney reaches a low settlement that binds all class members.


"That is a practice that's really harmful to workers," Yelin said. For the program, she sits on panels that adjudicate claims accusing attorneys of those practices and decides whether the association should admonish them or limit their access to the resources.