Associate, Desai Law Firm, P.C.
Adrianne De Castro is an associate at Desai Law Firm, P.C. in Orange County. Her practice focuses on plaintiff-side employment and consumer class actions. Ms. De Castro has extensive experience representing workers in employment discrimination cases on account of age, pregnancy, disability, gender, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, and wage and hour claims. Ms. De Castro has helped to successfully resolve numerous cases on behalf of employees at various stages of the litigation process, including just weeks before trial.
Over the last four years, she has devoted significant time to litigating wage and hour class actions on behalf of truck-drivers, leading to a published decision advancing the rights of truck drivers in the state of California. See Cardenas v. McLane Foodservice, Inc., 796 F. Supp. 2d 1246 (C.D. Cal. 2011) (granting truck drivers’ motion for summary judgment of pre and post-shift claims under California Labor Code where employer paid with piece rate wages and denying defendant’s motion for preemption under FAAAA); Shook v. Indian River Transport Co., 2014 U.S. District LEXIS 174395 (E.D. Cal. Dec 14, 2014)(holding that the FAAAA does not preempt wage claims for intrastate or interstate truck drivers); Aguirre, et al. v. Genesis Logistics, SACV 12-00687 JVS (C.D. Cal. Dec. 30, 2013 (awarding largest PAGA judgment in California for $500,000 for paystub violations).
Prior to joining the Desai Law Firm, P.C., Ms. De Castro was an associate at the law firm of Mower, Carreon, and Desai LLP where she litigated wage and hour and consumer class actions on behalf of restaurant workers, home health care workers, and California consumers. Ms. De Castro has also worked as an associate at the law firm of Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff, and Lowe in San Francisco where she focused on individual employment discrimination cases and wage and hour class actions. Ms. De Castro began her career as the Ruth Chance Law Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates where she spent two years representing low-wage women workers in sexual harassment and discrimination cases.
She also serves on the Board of the California Employment Lawyers Association (“CELA”), the premier organization in California of employee rights advocates. She is a member of CELA’s Diversity Committee, and is Co-Chair of CELA’s Education Committee. Ms. De Castro is a frequent lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. She is also an attorney volunteer at the Workers’ Rights Clinic at Legal Aid Society – Orange County.
Ms. De Castro is a 2005 graduate of U.C. Berkeley School of Law.