California employment law firm Curiale Dellaverson Hirschfeld & Kraemer recently opened a Reno office.
The 30-attorney firm with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles specializes in employment law such as discrimination and wage-and-hours cases.
The firm decided to open the parttime, two-person office after working on age and sexual discrimination cases for the Airport Authority of Washoe County, said Christopher Keller, an attorney with the firm.
After being admitted to the state bar for a limited number of cases, Keller and Donna Rutter, another firm lawyer, took the Nevada bar in February.
In May, after finding out that they had passed the bar, the pair opened the office at One East Liberty.
Now the attorneys are working with several local casinos and businesses to perform wage-and-hours audits to ensure the businesses properly classify all their employees and pay them overtime.
"It is easy for an employer through no fault of its own to misclassify employees," said Keller.
Such mistakes by California businesses, including Starbuck's, has led to class action suits resulting in huge judgments, he said.
Keller said the attorneys are in Reno every week and hope to be here full time within a year once local client workload warrants it.
