photo-brad-yamauchi-bio

Brad Yamauchi

Partner, Consumer & Employee Rights (Retired)

Brad represented claimants/plaintiffs in individual and class action Employment, Civil Rights and Consumer/Financial Fraud litigation with an emphasis on sexual harassment, retaliation and wage and hour claims. He also provided consultations, employer training and individualized coaching to create strategies to achieve client goals.

Mr. Yamauchi was born in Evanston, Illinois, on December 23, 1950. He was admitted to the California State Bar in 1976 and is also admitted to practice in the Northern, Central and Eastern District Federal Courts of California, and the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. He is AV rated, the highest rating for attorney competence and ethics by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, a national compilation of attorneys. He has been recognized as a Super Lawyer from 2004 to 2012, by Law & Politics Magazine. Only five percent of the lawyers in the California are Super Lawyers.

Mr. Yamauchi received his B.A. in 1973 from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a J.D. in 1976 from the Santa Clara University School of Law. While in law school he was a co-founder of the Asian Law Alliance of Santa Clara County, a nonprofit community legal services organization providing educational and legal services to low income Asians and Pacific Islanders. He was its first licensed attorney and he handled a variety of cases, including criminal defense, civil rights litigation and administrative hearings.

From 1976 to 1979, Mr. Yamauchi was a staff attorney for the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission in San Jose, California, where he investigated and mediated complaints of employment and housing discrimination, organized public hearings and wrote reports on issues such as school desegregation, community dispute resolution and law enforcement in minority neighborhoods.

From 1979 to 1987, Mr. Yamauchi was an Assistant Regional Civil Rights Attorney in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco, California, and from 1987 to 1990 he was assigned to the Business and Administrative Law Division. As a federal attorney, Mr. Yamauchi gained extensive federal civil rights litigation experience representing employees and the Department in employment discrimination and government services cases.

In 1990, Mr. Yamauchi became an Associate Attorney with Minami Tamaki. He litigated personal injury and employment discrimination cases and served as an advising attorney for Dole Foods, Inc. By 1993, his plaintiff employment law practice expanded to the point he established the employment law group within the firm and became a firm partner, serving until 2015.

The employment group evolved into the Consumer and Employee Rights Group as described in that section of this website. Mr. Yamauchi litigated major employment discrimination class actions, including the first federal case to certify a class based on a racially hostile work environment, Adams v. Pinole Point Steel, et al. In 2001, after seven years of litigation, he settled a federal employee class action on behalf of 2,500 female employees of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in California, Donnelly v. Glickman.

From 1996-2005 he was on the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), comprised of over 2,500 attorneys nationwide specializing in plaintiff employment litigation. From 2002-2005 he was the Board President of workplacefairness.org, a non-profit created to inform the public of employment issues and rights. From 2003-2008, he was on the Executive Board of the California Employment Lawyers Association. From 2008 to 2010 he served on the Executive Board of the Labor and Employment Law Committee of the Bar Association of San Francisco. From 2006 to 2008, as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Golden Gate Law School, he taught Survey of Employment Law and Employment Discrimination Law.

In 2012 he was elected to be on the Board of the National Asian Pacific Bar Association as its VP for Membership with over 40,000 members nationwide. From 2012 to 2014 he was on the Judicial Nominations Evaluation Commission of the California State Bar Association. In early 2012 he became a VP of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California. He has been a panelist or moderator at dozens of employment and litigation law seminars and serves as counsel, co-counsel, local counsel or advisor on employment and consumer cases around the country.

EDUCATION
J.D., University of Santa Clara Law School, 1976
B. A., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1973

ADMISSIONS
California, 1976
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

PROFESSIONAL
Workplace Fairness, Member and fmr. Board President
California Employment Lawyers Association, Board Member, 2003-2007
National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), Member, Executive Board (1996-
present)
Asian American Bar Association
Bar Association of San Francisco