About Arthur Lazear

Arthur Lazear has practiced law for more than 30 years, helping to obtain successful results for worthy clients nationwide. Mr. Lazear has prosecuted some of the biggest class actions ever litigated in employment law, but has never abandoned his level of personal attention to each client, which is the firm’s hallmark.

Mr. Lazear’s father was a janitor, an immigrant from Ukraine who worked nights in a tireless effort to provide his children the hope of a better life, that they might realize the American Dream. The example set by his father inspired Mr. Lazear’s lifelong commitment to protecting and enforcing the rights of working men and women at the hands of unethical or careless employers. He began his career appearing at arbitrations, on behalf of labor union employees, including steelworkers, communications workers, federal government employees, and of course, janitors, completing more than 100 labor arbitrations in his storied career.

In the Continental Can cases, Mr. Lazear, along with co-counsel Dan McIntyre of the United Steelworkers, represented hundreds of workers at plants nationwide who were discriminated against by being laid off illegally to defer or deny their entitlement to pension benefits, in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The two spent late nights poring over hundreds of pages of documents until they found proof that the company had unlawfully denied its workers their pensions through a complicated scheme of improper layoffs. The case was brought to fruition, and Mr. Lazear and his co-counsel were able to hand each of the affected workers a check for those pensions.

In the Pacific States Steel case, which Mr. Lazear had litigated since 1979, the details of which he still oversees, Mr. Lazear fought successfully to force the company to pay hundreds of steelworkers’ their promised lifetime medical benefits. After their plant was shut down, he was able to secure the land and the plant itself as collateral against the amounts owed the many pensioners. After convincing the United States District Court to forced the company to turn over to the plaintiffs the large piece of contaminated property in Union City, California, which had held the plant, Arthur Lazear’s diligence ultimately saw the land remediated, sold, and developed into 800 homes, with tens of millions of dollars in proceeds distributed to the plaintiff class.

Having tried dozens of employment cases to verdict, Mr. Lazear has also fought for employees’ rights at the California Supreme Court, at the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and at numerous other courts in California and nationwide.

Mr. Lazear has not only helped empower employees in the workplace, but has tried to verdict complex matters relating to medical malpractice, commercial disputes, and land use. The common theme of Mr. Lazear’s high-quality, diverse representation is that he works to make a positive societal impact in every case.

Mr. Lazear has trained generations of lawyers how to practice law and how to write persuasive arguments, and his briefs have been used as teaching tools in multiple law schools. He is native of New York, a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley and Boalt Hall School of Law, and remains an avid Cal and East Bay sports fan. Mr. Lazear is married to Angela Lazear, also a firm employee, and they have two children.