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.

Seever v. Copley Press, Inc., 141 Cal. App. 4th 1550 (2006)

Michael Seever worked as a building superintendent for The Daily Breeze (owned by Copley) before the company instituted a reduction in force that resulted in the elimination of 18 positions, including Seever’s. Seever alleged discrimination on the basis of a disability (he had tripped over his cat, injuring his shoulder) and his age

Wallace v. City of San Diego, 460 F.3d 1181 (9th Cir. 2006)

James D. Wallace was employed as a police officer and detective by the City of San Diego for more than 25 years. In 1982, Wallace began serving as an officer in the Naval Reserve. After several tours of duty, including tours in Iraq (during Operation Desert Storm) and Bosnia, Wallace resigned from

Bass v. County of Butte, 2006 WL 2348467 (9th Cir. 2006)

Allison Bass and two co-workers asserted employment discrimination claims against the County of Butte based upon the county’s alleged failure to accommodate their work-related disabilities. Plaintiffs alleged violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Disabled Persons Act on the theory that the two state statutes incorporated Title I (the anti-discrimination provision)

Romaneck v. Deutsche Asset Mgmt., 2006 WL 2385237 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 17, 2006)

Lawrence Romaneck worked as the Director of Sales for Deutsche Asset Management’s West Region from 1996 to 2004. Deutsche Bank asserted that it had terminated Romaneck for his involvement in facilitating market timing by one of the company’s clients; Romaneck alleged his employment was terminated in violation of several statutes, including

Baptist v. Robinson, 2006 WL 2699181 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006)

While riding his motorcycle, Ronald Baptist struck a large plastic agricultural bin that had fallen onto the highway from the back of a pickup truck that was owned and driven by Thomas Robinson. Robinson was employed by Thomas Fogarty Winery and had, without the winery’s knowledge or permission, borrowed and was transporting the bin

Sonoma State Univ. v. WCAB, 142 Cal. App. 4th 500 (2006)

Lesley Hunton worked as a police dispatcher for Sonoma State University for 14 years before filing a workers’ compensation claim in which she alleged an injury to her psyche arising out of and in the course of her employment. Hunton complained that the frequent and unexpected sounding of false fire and burglar alarms

McRae v. Dep’t of Corrections, 142 Cal. App. 4th 377 (2006)

Dr. Margie McRae filed a lawsuit against her employer, the California Department of Corrections, and four individual defendants, seeking damages for discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The trial court granted summary judgment to the four individual defendants, and the case proceeded to trial against the

Edwards v. Arthur Andersen LLP, 142 Cal. App. 4th 603 (2006)

Raymond Edwards II, the former tax manager for the Los Angeles office of the now defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, had executed a non-competition agreement that prohibited him from performing professional services for 18 months post-employment for any client whose account he had handled during the final 18 months of his employment

Dunbar v. Albertson’s, Inc., 141 Cal. App. 4th 1422 (2006)

Maurice Dunbar, a grocery manager for Albertson’s, filed this class action in which he asserted that he and other similarly situated Albertson’s employees were misclassified as executive employees exempt from overtime. The putative class consisted of approximately 900 individuals who had worked as grocery managers for Albertson’s since 2000. In support of his motion

Koehl v. Verio, Inc., 2006 WL 2615515 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006)

Jeffrey Koehl, et al., worked as sales associates for Verio, an Internet service provider. Sales associates earned base salaries of between $40,000 and $75,000 plus commissions based on their sales volumes. If a customer cancelled an installation order before paying for the first three months of service, Verio would recover the commission payments