Photo of Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the Co-Chair Emeritus of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is "brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up." Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as "outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a "phenomenal strategist" and "one of the top employment litigators in the country."

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM"), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

On May 19, 2025, Proskauer attorneys successfully compelled to arbitration an employment discrimination lawsuit that had been filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court. While the former employee claimed that she never signed the arbitration agreement because she lacked access to her work email while on medical leave, the defendants established with emails showing that the employee actually did “access the . . . platform”

Williams v. Alacrity Solutions Grp., LLC, 110 Cal. App. 5th 932 (2025)

Corbin Williams sued his former employer (Alacrity Solutions Group, LLC) for various wage and hour violations. However, Williams failed to provide written notice of his claims to the state Labor & Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) until more than a year had passed since the end of his employment with Alacrity, thus barring any

Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc., 110 Cal. App. 5th 899 (2025)

La Kimba Bradsbery and Cheri Brakensiek sued their former employer (Vicar Operating, Inc.) in a putative class action, alleging that Vicar had failed to provide them with meal periods for shifts between five and six hours. Vicar responded that plaintiffs had prospectively waived in writing all waivable meal periods throughout their employment with Vicar.

Tesla Motors, Inc. v. Balan, 134 F.4th 558 (9th Cir. 2025)

Tesla Motors and Elon Musk prevailed in an arbitration proceeding against a former employee based on California’s one-year statute of limitations.  Tesla and Musk subsequently petitioned the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to confirm the arbitration award in their favor.  The district court granted the petition to confirm, but

Hofer v. Boladian, 2025 WL 1354795 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025)

Plaintiffs in this case initiated litigation against defendants, notwithstanding the existence of binding arbitration agreements between the parties.  For six months following the filing of the litigation, plaintiffs sought two forms of preliminary injunctive relief, opposed a demurrer, propounded more than 700 discovery requests, demanded a jury trial in their case management conference statement, represented

Nazaryan v. FemtoMetrix, Inc., 2025 WL 1177060 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025)

Hovik Nazaryan sued his former employer and several of its officers and a member of the board of directors after the parties settled a prior dispute between them and the defendants agreed to classify the settlement proceeds as “Founder’s Stock” and not “compensation, salary or income for [Nazaryan’s] services to FemtoMetrix.” The defendants subsequently

De la Cruz v. Mission Hills Shopping Ctr. LLC, 2025 WL 1218040 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025)

Myranda De la Cruz tripped on a pothole in a Mission Hills shopping center parking lot.  There was an exculpatory clause in a contract between De la Cruz’s employer (a tenant in the shopping center) and the shopping center that relieved the shopping center of any liability for negligent

Odom v. Los Angeles Cmty. Coll. Dist., 110 Cal. App. 5th 470 (2025)

Sabrena Odom, a tenured Los Angeles Community College (“LACC”) professor, sued LACC and one of its top administrators for sexual harassment and retaliation. After a three-week trial, the jury awarded plaintiff a total of $10 million for past and future mental suffering and emotional distress damages. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding

Sexton v. Apple Studios LLC, 110 Cal. App. 5th 183 (2025)

In early 2022, Apple Studios LLC conditionally offered actor Brent Sexton the role of U.S. President Andrew Johnson in its production of “Manhunt,” a limited streaming series about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  One of the conditions for Sexton’s casting was that he be fully vaccinated in compliance