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 Jean K. Hyams
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Biography: Two decades ago, Jean Hyams left a successful career in high technology marketing to pursue her dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. Jean believes that employers who institute good management practices can put a stop to discrimination, retaliation and harassment in the workplace. When they don’t, it is the job of employment lawyers to hold employers accountable for the damage and devastation that employees suffer from violation of their civil rights. Soon after graduation from Boalt Hall School of Law in 1989, Jean opened her own law practice and began representing women who were sexually harassed and people with disabilities who had faced discrimination. She then served as a Civil Rights Attorney with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education, the federal agency charged with enforcing federal laws prohibiting discrimination in education. Jean is now a partner with Boxer & Gerson, LLP, affiliated with the firm’s employment law and elder abuse practice groups. Jean considers it a privilege to have represented people with disabilities, older workers, women, gays and lesbians, whistleblowers, injured workers, and people of color in lawsuits seeking vindication for civil rights violations. At Boxer & Gerson, LLP, Jean has developed a particular expertise in the complicated interplay between disability discrimination and workers’ compensation laws. As a member of the board of the California Employment Lawyers Association, the statewide organization of attorneys who represent employees in employment disputes, Jean co-chairs the CELA Legislative Committee and has testified before the California legislature. Jean is frequently asked to speak about litigation, employment law and other topics at continuing legal education seminars throughout California. Although her litigation practice is devoted to representation of employees, Jean also enjoys the opportunity to serve as a mediator of employment claims and disability access cases through the Northern District of California’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Program and through private mediations arranged by the parties. She brings experience and perspective as a litigator to bear in assisting both sides to evaluate the case strengths and weaknesses during facilitated settlement negotiations. For the past three years, San Francisco Magazine has recognized her as one of Northern California’s Super Lawyers in the field of employment law and litigation. Outside the realm of employment law, Jean’s career has included practice in the areas of personal injury, clergy sexual abuse, tenants’ rights, estate planning, probate, and housing discrimination. Case Highlights Boxer & Gerson attorneys represented a corporate sales manager in her sexual harassment claims against her employer, 24 Hour Fitness. The company required their employees to sign away the right to a trial by jury as a condition of their employment, so the claims could only be brought through private arbitration. The result, a $2.4 million award, including $1.2 million in punitive damages, was one of the largest awards on record for a single plaintiff arbitration. After the arbitration, the employer tried to seal the record to keep Boxer & Gerson’s client from publicizing the outcome of her case. Jean Hyams and Leslie F. Levy fought a post-arbitration legal battle for the right to make the company’s misdeeds public so that other employers would learn the costly consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace. Boxer & Gerson attorneys Jean Hyams and Darci Burrell tried a case on behalf of a woman who suffered from retaliation after she complained repeatedly about sexual and racial harassment on the graveyard shift at Caltrans’ Oakland Transportation Management Center. Members of the jury wept when they rendered a unanimous verdict finding Caltrans liable for maintaining a sexually and racially hostile work environment and subjecting the plaintiff to retaliation. By obtaining a jury verdict and attorneys’ fee award in excess of $1 million, the Boxer & Gerson employment team vindicated the rights of the Caltrans employee and delivered a clear message to employers about the cost of maintaining a work environment in which sexually and racially inappropriate conduct is permitted to thrive. Boxer & Gerson brought suit for wrongful termination in violation of public policy on behalf of a police officer who was terminated after he complained to his superiors that he had been unlawfully pressured to falsify a police report. By taking depositions of command officers up the chain of command to the level of chief of police, attorney Jean Hyams gathered evidence to show that her client’s complaints were one of the factors motivating the decision to terminate him. Just days before a jury trial was set to begin, the police department agreed to a $475,000 settlement. On the eve of trial, the Oakland Unified School District agreed to pay $200,000 to settle the lawsuit filed by Boxer & Gerson on behalf of a primary school teacher who was injured because the District failed to provide reasonable accommodations for her disabilities. A swim coach reported that one of her assistant coaches was engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with minors on the swim team. Her employer refused to do anything to correct the situation and she resigned from her job rather than sit by and watch the young team members be harmed. Boxer & Gerson attorneys Leslie Levy and Jean Hyams won the jury trial, resulting in an award of over $100,000 for the swim coach. A woman who missed work because of her serious health condition was fired by her employer under its "no fault" absence policy. After Boxer & Gerson filed suit on her behalf and worked the case up for trial, the employer ended up footing the bill for the plaintiff’s attorneys fees and paying the plaintiff money damages to avoid a jury trial. A confidential resolution resulted from a tenure discrimination case brought on behalf of a university professor alleging gender and disability discrimination. A minister used his pastoral counseling sessions to convince an emotionally vulnerable member of his church that it was God’s will that she should have sex with him. Jean Hyams brought suit against the minister and his church for breach of the relationship of trust between clergy and parishioner. After aggressive litigation, the matter resolved confidentially on the eve of trial. Seminars/Symposia "Annual Employment Law Update," California State Bar, Labor and Employment Section Conference, 2006, San Jose "Fair Employment and Housing Act and its Relation to Workers’ Compensation," California Applicants’ Attorneys Association Convention, 2006, Monterey "Drafting Jury Instructions," California Employment Lawyers Association Annual Conference, 2006, Long Beach "Mandatory Arbitration of Employment Disputes," Bar Association of San Francisco Labor and Employment Law Section’s Annual Conference, 2006, Yosemite "Getting a Life: Achieving Balance in Work and Life," California Employment Lawyers Association Annual Conference, 2005, San Francisco "Managing the HR Deposition," Plaintiff’s Employment Law Association Seminar, 2005, San Francisco "Daily Ethical Challenges of Dealing with Opposing Counsel," California Employment Lawyers Association Annual Conference, 2004, San Diego "Crossover Issues in Employment Law and Workers’ Compensation," California Applicants’ Attorneys Association Convention, 2004, Rancho Mirage "Winning at Arbitration," California Employment Lawyers Association Annual Conference, 2003, San Francisco "The So-Called Independent Mental Examination and You," Plaintiff’s Employment Law Association Seminar, 2003, San Francisco "How to Deal with Defense Tricks du Jour," California Employment Lawyers Association Annual Conference, 2002, Pasadena Memberships:
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