Photo of Janelle J. Sahouria

Janelle J. Sahouria is a principal in the San Francisco, California, office of Jackson Lewis P.C.

She represents employers in a broad array of employment matters, including wage and hour, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblower, unfair competition, and class actions. She also counsels clients on human resources policies and employee relations to prevent litigation. Janelle has experience handling all aspects of litigation including mediation, arbitration, trial, and appeals.

On September 27, 2024, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 1137, which clarifies that the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the provisions of the Education Code prohibiting discrimination in public education, and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibit discrimination on the basis not just of individual protected traits, but also on the

The State of California recently updated two pamphlets that must be provided to new hires.

The California Department of Industrial Relations Division of Workers Compensation updated its “Time of Hire” Pamphlet.  Employers must provide this document to newly hired employees. The document explains what workers’ compensation is, how to file a claim in

For an employee to be exempt from overtime regulations under California law, the employee must fit into a category of work that is deemed exempt.

The most common exemptions are the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions.  Workers who are employed in administrative, managerial, executive, or professional capacities generally fall under one of these exemptions. Each

Employers in California are faced with a myriad of complex federal and state laws.  It does not stop there.  An employer with employees working in the City of Oakland may also need to comply with local ordinances.

The following is an overview of employment regulations in Oakland.

Minimum Wage

Like several other cities in California,

The Governor has signed Assembly Bill 1506 (AB 1506) which extends the existing exemption for three more years for newspaper distributors and carriers from the “ABC Test” under Dynamex and Assembly Bill 5. The bill takes into account the reality that newspaper carriers often work for more than one newspaper, and requiring carriers to be

An effective settlement agreement memorializes the resolution of a dispute between a claimant-employee and a business, provides the parties with a clear path forward, and creates peace of mind. A poorly-drafted settlement agreement, on the other hand, can create further conflict and problems.

This is what litigators would like employers to understand about effective settlement

On September 9, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill (“AB”) 736, which expands the professional exemption under Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Orders Nos. 4-2001 and 5-2001 to include part-time, or “adjunct,” faculty at private, non-profit colleges and universities in California.

AB 736 amends the Labor Code to add Section 515.7, which states that

One of the first employment-related bills signed by Governor Newsom this legislative session was Assembly Bill (“AB”) 2257, which recasts, clarifies, and expands exemptions to AB 5, last year’s bill relating to independent contractors.

In September 2019, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 5, which codified the “ABC Test” adopted by the California