The overall effectiveness of labor & employment litigation hinges on credible witnesses- and the reliability of their participation. In higher stakes cases, e.g., PAGA, the sheer volume of employee witnesses can tip the scales in favor of a higher settlement for class members and your firm.
Unfortunately, hitting the right quality and volume of witnesses within optimal timeframes can be frustratingly slow.
California labor & employment litigation requires a robust set of research skills. One significant challenge is the ability to thoroughly research and understand the defendant’s business and the scope of their workforce. Inadequate employee research can cause you to miss opportunities and weaken your case. Lack of employee workforce data ends up being costly in the long run.
When you encounter these scenarios in your case, consider beefing up your research capabilities (we wrote a guide on the subject) – or outsourcing to a team that specializes in it.
Researching labor and employment litigation defendants, especially in PAGA cases, has become increasingly complex. California companies have become much more challenging to investigate. This challenge is partly due to practices such as having various parts of a single business divided into multiple corporations or LLCs, incorporating via masked filing services without naming principles or the physical address, using Fictitious Business Filings to obscure the chain of ownership, and holding property ownerships in shell corporations or LLCs.
Process servers play an instrumental role in the legal procedure. When tackling a difficult service of process, some process servers fail – or just move inefficiently – negatively impacting your case’s timeline, cost, and outcome.
Consider using these questions to gauge their skill level and depth of service:
The success of a litigation case often hinges on the active participation of all parties involved.
For litigation attorneys in California – especially those involved in PAGA (Private Attorney General Act) cases – the unexpected absence of a plaintiff can delay the settlement or kill the case.
