Dana Howells Quoted in the Los Angeles Daily Journal
"L.A. Judges Start Program to Deal With Crush of Employment Cases"

Seyfarth Shaw Los Angeles partner and head of Los Angeles County Bar Association's labor and employment section Dana Howells was quoted in the Los Angeles Daily Journal on June 7. The article discussed a new plan to handle the rising tide of employment litigation currently faced by Los Angeles County Superior Court judges.

Participants in the Civil Referee Assisted Settlement Hearing (CRASH) program include lawyers and judges who are volunteering their time, and the program will not require any court funding. CRASH will comprise 10 settlement teams, and each of those teams will include one judge or commissioner, one employment lawyer from the defense bar and one lawyer from the plaintiffs bar. Each team will hold approximately 150 settlement conferences hearing individual employment cases but would not include class actions. A test run is scheduled to take place September 19-23, 2011.

According to the article, since 1996 the number of employment claims brought to the Los Angeles court has risen steadily from approximately 50 to now nearly 300 claims per month. A main goal of CRASH is to increase settlements for these disputes, which "often require the most resources to litigate."

"Everyone's on the same page that it's a good thing to do," said Dana. "I've never participated in a settlement conference with two experts, one from each side. That's going to be a new and different dynamic. I'm hoping that will add some value to the program to have one advocate from each side involved in the process."