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.

Winterrowd v. American General Annuity Ins. Co., 321 F.3d 933 (9th Cir. 2003)

Three commissioned sales employees were laid off after their employer’s parent company was acquired by American General Corporation. As commissioned salespeople, the employees were not eligible for severance benefits under the employer’s Job Security Plan. However, the employees were offered and did agree to accept a different severance package in exchange

Korea Supply Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 29 Cal. 4th 1134 (2003)

Korea Supply Company (KSC) sued Lockheed Martin for violation of California‘s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and for interference with prospective economic relations after Lockheed Martin’s predecessor, Loral Corporation, was awarded a contract to provide military equipment to the Republic of Korea. KSC alleged that the contract was awarded to Loral

Jameson v. Five Feet Restaurant, Inc., 107 Cal. App. 4th 138 (2003)

Karla Jameson, a former server at Five Feet Restaurant, sued the restaurant for sexual harassment, retaliation, and unpaid wages, among other things, following her resignation in 1999. At trial, the jury found that although Jameson had not been sexually harassed, she had been retaliated against for complaining about alleged sexual harassment. The

Kulshrestha v. First Union Commercial Corp., 107 Cal. App. 4th 415 (2003)

Dheeraj Kulshrestha sued First Union for wrongful termination, promissory fraud, and discrimination, among other things. In response to First Union’s motion for summary judgment, Kulshrestha filed a declaration that he executed in Columbus, Ohio but that did not state that it was signed “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the

Roden v. Bergen Brunswig Corp., 107 Cal. App. 4th 620 (2003)

Bergen Brunswig Corporation terminated the employment of Donald R. Roden, its president and CEO, without cause in 1999. After Roden filed a lawsuit alleging intentional interference with prospective economic relations, slander, and infliction of emotional distress, among other things, Bergen Brunswig communicated a settlement offer pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure § 998.

Kasky v. Nike, Inc., 27 Cal. 4th 939 (2002), cert. granted, 537 U.S. 1099 (2003)

Marc Kasky sued Nike, Inc. on behalf of the general public of the State of California under Business and Professions Code sections 17204 and 17535 alleging that Nike—in response to public criticism and in an effort to induce consumers to continue to buy its products—made false statements of

Intershop Communications AG v. Superior Court, 104 Cal. App. 4th 191 (2002)

Frank Martinez, a California resident, sued his former employer, Intershop Communications, Inc., and its German parent company for breach of a stock options exchange agreement. The exchange agreement contained a choice-of-law (German law) and forum-selection clause (Hamburg, Germany). The trial court denied Intershop’s motion to stay the proceedings pursuant to the doctrine

Park v. Shin, 313 F.3d 1138 (9th Cir. 2002)

Tae Sook Park sued Bong Kil Shin, the Deputy Consul General of the Korean Consulate in San Francisco, and his wife, Mee Sook Shin, for various employment-related claims arising from Park’s tenure as the Shins’ domestic servant. The Shins argued that they were entitled to consular immunity under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and

Advanced Bionics Corp. v. Medtronic, Inc., 29 Cal. 4th 697 (2002)

Mark Stultz was employed in Minnesota as a senior product specialist for Medtronic, a manufacturer of implantable neurostimulation devices, before resigning his employment and going to work for Advanced Bionics Corporation, one of Medtronic’s competitors located in Sylmar, California. Upon accepting employment with Medtronic, Stultz signed a non-competition agreement, which contained a choice-of-law

Honeywell v. WCAB, 104 Cal. App. 4th 829 (2002)

The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (“WCAB”) found that Honeywell had breached its duty to provide its employee, William Wagner, with a workers’ compensation claim form after it became “reasonably certain” of Wagner’s alleged psychiatric injury. As a result, the WCAB held that the 90-day period to contest the alleged injury began and expired without a