Laura D. Heckathorn

Laura Heckathorn has nearly 16 years' experience counseling and training a diverse group of clients to effectively manage risk and avoid costly employment and regulatory issues. She also has significant experience managing employment litigation as first chair in federal and state court proceedings, arbitration, before administrative agencies, and during appeals.

Laura has spent her entire legal career advocating for employers and aims to provide creative, customized, and practical solutions for companies trying to navigate the challenges created by California law. She strategically advises clients on a broad array of state and federal legal issues to ensure employment law compliance and effectively manage litigation risk.

Specifically, Laura's deep counseling experience includes assisting clients with internal investigations, sexual harassment legal developments and compliance, leave of absence guidance, disability accommodation obligations, handbook creation and updates, employment agreements, succession planning and reductions in force, wage and hour audits, personnel policies, workplace strategies, employee relations, and Title III accessibility issues. She has created and delivered numerous employee and management training programs for clients on these and many other employment law topics.

Laura also has extensive employment litigation experience and success defending companies against state and federal lawsuits, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, ADA Title III, and wage/hour claims in both single-plaintiff and class-action matters. Her clients span all industries, with an emphasis on retail, finance, media, and entertainment companies.

Ms. Heckathorn has served as in-house counsel in various capacities for several Fortune 500 companies. She began her career in employment law at Paul Hastings, where she was an associate in the Los Angeles office for five years.