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Employees First Labor Law P.C. 

1 S Fair Oaks Avenue, Suite 200

Pasadena, California 91105

(310) 853-3461

employeesfirstlaborlaw.com

Jonathan LaCour’s Firm Doubles in Size, Leveraging Mass Torts for Groundbreaking Employment Law Successes

"Since we were last profiled (2020), we have more than doubled the size of our firm and I expect to double that size again in the next year by fueling our growth using mass torts in employment,” says Jonathan LaCour, founder and Managing Attorney of Employees First Labor Law (EFLL).

LaCour’s confidence in the future is based on experience. The firm, established in 2011, currently employs 20 people, including six attorneys. They have moved into a new 5000 sq. ft. office in Pasadena to accommodate the increase in staff and the case load. They also have offices in Irvine, Pomona, Riverside, Bakersfield, and Fresno. Their primary practice areas are sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, workplace discrimination, workers’ compensation, business litigation, and employment law.

LaCour notes specific successes validating the value of his approach. The firm settled a case for $2,650,000 using the mass torts method last August. In April of 2023 they settled a pregnancy discrimination case for $2,187,500. In April of 2024, they achieved a wage and hour settlement of $2,367,850 in Kim v. Veyo. In October of 2022, Employees First Labor Law obtained a $1,750,000 settlement in a disability discrimination matter and in November of 2022, secured a $1,000,000 settlement in a race discrimination matter. In December of 2022, Employees First Labor Law obtained a number of seven-figure settlements, including a $2,187,500 settlement in a pregnancy discrimination matter, a $1,200,000 settlement in an associational discrimination matter, and a $1,750,000 settlement in a wage and hour class action. Additionally, in September of 2023, Employees First Labor Law obtained a $2,250,000 settlement in a retaliation matter. In addition to these success stories, LaCour also received what is believed to be the first ever attorneys’ fees award under 1102.5(j) in the State of California.

The attorneys serve a wide variety of individual people and families, but the typical client is someone who has been fired for an illegal reason, has been discriminated against because of their race or gender or religion or sexual orientation, has been sexually harassed or retaliated against, hasn’t been paid overtime or their fair wage, or is facing a workplace injury. 

“We have considerable expertise in employment law and now we’re applying that know-how mass tort style. We’re doing more work, better work and serving more people in real need than ever,” LaCour says.

Champions for the Little Guy

LaCour says he never had an “ah-ha” moment about choosing his practice area, but he does note that early experiences in the workforce did have an effect. His first job was in a pizza restaurant where management subjected the employees to serious and ongoing wage and hour violations. One of the examples he remembers involved abuses of comp time, which is illegal in California. For example, an employee working a seven-hour shift has to work extra hours because another employee did not show up, which has the employee now working nine or ten or more hours. The restaurant would not pay for the overtime, but would, instead, allow the employee to leave early the next day. The restaurant, of course, then did not pay overtime. The abuse and the effects it had on him and his fellow employees stayed with him.

LaCour says, “Once I became a lawyer, I ended being on the defense. I saw how the same wrongs, and more, were unfolding right before my eyes. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of these types of claims. My moral compass drove me to operate on the plaintiff side. I started out in private equity and corporate and then I ultimately went out to defend a little guy. I haven’t looked back since.”

He is not shy about having his firm take on “super-righteous” cases. He cites a case involving a medical technology provider. One of the company’s customers discovered that he was having kidney problems. A blood test revealed very high levels of creatine causing severe deterioration of each of his kidneys. His kidneys were failing and he needed a transplant. LaCour says he and the firm had to really study the medicine to fully comprehend and to properly handle the case. For example, a kidney transplant doesn’t remove one organ to replace it with another. The new kidney is placed alongside the failing kidneys. His client therefore had three kidneys, of which only one functioned.

Their client was allowed time off by his employer, but when he was ready and able to return to work, they wouldn’t allow him back in because they didn’t want to deal with his medical issues. The future EFLL client was told about a hiring freeze supposedly caused by the firm’s financial challenges. “We can’t bring you back; we’re actually laying off people,” he was told. When LaCour’s team filed the case, they discovered that the so-called financially challenged firm had raised $72 million on a billion-dollar valuation and had actually gone on a hiring spree. This case is still pending and is set to go to trial later this year.

LaCour says one of the reasons so many people come to the firm is their solid reputation online. “People talk and word gets around. They know I don’t go after baby money. I’m not trying to file a case to do a little bit of work for mediation, put my hand out, and just benefit from my clients’ misfortune. That’s not my goal. My goal in every single case is to be able to give them life-changing money, every single one of them.” Some members of the firm joked that between 2022 and 2023 LaCour should have been nominated as realtor of the year because the firm helped eight people buy houses.

LaCour says that many firms may take on a disability case telling their client that the attorneys can do a little bit of discovery, get into mediation, and then perhaps get a $50,000—$100,000 settlement. According to LaCour, this is the point an attorney has to ask, “Am I just a settle-this-quick attorney where I’m going to not have a lot of interaction and not have a lot of work done and go to mediation and hope for the best? Or am I really going to get real money for my client?” He adds, “We never settle for less, for the baby money. That’s the recipe for our success, because we’re business partners with all of our people. If I just took $50,000 or $100,000 settlements, you know, that wouldn’t put us in a position to succeed as we have.”

Numbers don’t lie. A few case results illustrate the success of LaCour’s approach: $7,900,000 Projected Value Settlement, Workplace Injury & Wrongful Termination; $5,150,000 Settlement, Workplace Injury & Wrongful Termination; $2,650,000 Settlement, Wage and Hour & Wrongful Termination; $2,367,850 Settlement, Wage and Hour Class & PAGA Action; $2,187,500 Settlement, Pregnancy Discrimination; $1,950,000 Settlement, Wage and Hour Class Action; $1,800,000 Settlement, Pregnancy Discrimination; $1,750,000 Settlement, Wage and Hour Class & PAGA Action; and a $1,200,000 Settlement for Associational Disability Discrimination.

LaCour says that EFLL gets much higher on average than other firms because they put all their resources into every case. He works up the file and is one of the few attorneys in employment who is unafraid to try tough cases. “The fact that we did those nine trials in that 12-month period shows that there are some attorneys terrified of going to trial but that is not my firm. The other side always knows that I am willing to go the distance for my clients.”

Managing by Empowering

LaCour says, “I’m always trying to do the very best I can by empowering our team, by constantly training them, and by carefully listening to and evaluating what they say. I’ve learned this the hard way, but the lessons stayed with me.”

He has organized leadership meetings to prod employee learning and experience. Each department has its designated leader who is responsible for that department’s work product. He or she also conducts the leadership meetings. Knowledge is shared department-to-department so that everyone is in the loop on the firm’s activities and its cases. Each attorney has his or her own docket and is supported with another Associate Attorney and a partner in litigation support. The offices feature attorney lounges in an open seating plan that fosters interaction. The firm routinely has several attorneys working in the lounge together where they bounce ideas, strategies, and best practices off of one another. 

“My management style is to work hard and to play hard. I look for the best talent that there is and then I do whatever is necessary to retain and grow that talent. That’s kind of been the ongoing recipe for success,” LaCour says.