S. Pasadena, CA

Paul L. Hoffman

Paul L. Hoffman is a partner at Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, LLP, specializing in constitutional and civil rights litigation, including First Amendment, discrimination, privacy, and general business litigation, as well as civil and criminal appeals. He was named one of the 100 most influential attorneys in California by the Daily Journal in October 1998 and one of the top trial lawyers in Los Angeles County by the Los Angeles Business Journal in February 1999. Prior to joining the firm, he served as Legal Director for the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, where he was lead counsel on numerous landmark cases. He has extensive experience in international human rights activities, including serving on Amnesty International's International Executive Committee and as Chair of the Board for Amnesty International - USA. He has also held teaching positions at various universities, including Southwestern University School of Law, Oxford University/George Washington School of Law, Stanford Law School, UCLA School of Law, USC Law School, and Loyola Law School.

Wilmer J. Harris

Wilmer J. Harris graduated from Stanford University in 1986 with an A.B. degree in Economics, with Distinction, and Honors in Humanities. He was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa in 1985. Mr. Harris graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1990, earning Order of the Coif honors and American Jurisprudence Awards in Evidence, Moot Court and Remedies. In August 1995, Mr. Harris joined the firm (currently named Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes) where he has concentrated primarily on the representation of employees in disputes with employers and individuals in civil rights cases. In November 1999, Mr. Harris opened a satellite office in the Pasadena area where he remains the resident partner. Mr. Harris speaks regularly on employment law issues for the State Bar of California, Los Angeles County Bar Association and California Employment Lawyers Association. Mr. Harris has garnered several settlements and judgments in excess of $1 million in individual civil rights and qui tam cases. Mr. Harris has also recovered many multimillion dollar settlements in wage and hour class actions. Mr. Harris served as co-lead counsel on a $42 million settlement on behalf of a class of residential real estate appraisers. Mr. Harris has served on the Board of Directors of the California Employment Lawyers Association and Disability Rights Legal Center. In 2005, he was selected to sit on the California State Bar Labor & Employment Executive Committee and served through 2013. He served as the Chair of the State Bar Labor & Employment Section for the 2010-2011 term. Mr. Harris has been selected as a 'Southern California Super Lawyer' by Los Angeles Magazine for several years. In May 2017, Mr. Harris secured a jury verdict of over $5 million for which he was nominated for Consumer Attorneys Association Los Angeles' Trial Lawyer of the Year Award in 2017. He practices extensively on behalf of whistleblowers, both in individual retaliation cases as well as complex cases under the False Claims Act, serving as relator's counsel in a number of qui tam actions. Mr. Harris and co-counsel have received seven figure recoveries in such cases aimed at rooting out fraud against the government.

Michael D. Seplow

Michael D. Seplow is a partner at Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, LLP where his practice focuses on civil rights and employment litigation. Mr. Seplow has been litigating police misconduct cases since 1992 and has been actively involved in several successful civil rights cases, including a case in which a mentally disabled Los Angeles resident was wrongfully imprisoned in New York State for two years, which resulted in a published decision (Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668 (9th Cir. 2001)) and a $3.75 million settlement. Mr. Seplow is a 1990 graduate of UCLA School of Law and received his A.B Degree from Duke University in 1985. He has taught as an adjunct professor at UC Irvine School of Law from 2014-2017, teaching civil rights litigation (2014-2017) and is presently teaching an appellate litigation clinic. Mr. Seplow has been named as a 'Super Lawyer' from 2004-2022 by Los Angeles Magazine. For his work on the appeal before the California Supreme Court in the case of B.B v. County of Los Angeles, 10 Cal. 5th 1 (2020) Mr. Seplow (as well as his co-counsel) received the California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) Award for 2020 by the Los Angeles Daily Journal in March 2021 and the 2021 Streetfighter of the Year Award by the Consumer Attorneys of California. Mr. Seplow is a member of various professional organizations, including the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP), the California Employment Lawyers Association (CELA), the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA), the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Helen I. Zeldes

Nationally recognized class action attorney Helen Zeldes joined Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, LLP in August 2019. Helen has dedicated her 20-year career to representing plaintiffs in complex cases involving fraud, deceptive business practices, defective products, antitrust, insurance bad faith, mortgage lending and banking fraud, employment discrimination, wage and hour and human rights violations. Helen is a fearless advocate for her clients who has demonstrated time and again for the millions of consumers she has represented over her career that she's truly in it for the long haul, working tirelessly in the trenches to bring corporate wrongdoers to justice. Helen routinely leads the charge as lead or co-lead counsel on high profile complex cases. Some of Helen's recent noteworthy cases include: Toll Roads Litigation, Trump University, Sony Electronics Trackpad Defect Litigation, Apple Power Adapter Defect Litigation, Mylife.com Reputation Fraud Litigation, US Healthworks Wage Hour Class Action, AMG Wage Hour Class Action, In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, and Masukawa v. County of San Diego. Helen was named a San Diego Super Lawyer from 2017-2019 and again from 2021-2024. She was also nominated for the 2016 National Association of Women Business Owners' Woman Business Owner Of The Year award and was a 2016 finalist in the San Diego Business Journal's Women Who Mean Business Awards. Helen is committed to giving back to the community - she currently champions sustainable farming and food justice issues on the Board of the Berry Good Food Foundation, is on the Advisory Board of Think Dignity, and was on the Board of San Diego BayKeeper (now CoastKeeper), to name a few. Ms. Zeldes is licensed to practice law in the California and Hawaii and is admitted to practice before all the federal district courts in both states. In an alternate universe somewhere Helen owned super cool local artist galleries in Encinitas and Hawaii, loves stand up and outrigger paddling and sneaks off to Bali and Mexico when no one is watching. When not fighting the good fight, she spends quality time with her daughter and new puppy.

Joshua A. Fields

Joshua A. Fields is an experienced and accomplished complex litigation and appellate attorney. Mr. Fields has been licensed in California since 2006 and joined Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, LLP in 2022. He brings a broad and diverse background to prosecuting lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs. He focuses on complex litigation matters, including class action and mass action lawsuits, and has achieved up to 8-figure settlements for classes. Over the course of his 18 plus year career, Mr. Fields has prosecuted lawsuits in a wide variety of practice areas, such as consumer protection, fraud, truth in lending, insurance bad faith, invasion of privacy, free speech, employment harassment and discrimination, and catastrophic personal injury. He has successful outcomes in trial and arbitration proceedings. Mr. Fields’ aggressive representation has resulted in sizable victories for his clients and important victories for consumers across California.

Amy Johnsgard

Amy is both a zealous advocate and a compassionate advisor to her personal injury clients. She is dedicated to doing everything possible to obtain the maximum recovery for her clients after they are injured due to someone else’s carelessness. She devotes personal attention to each client to address their specific needs creatively and effectively. Amy’s extensive background in litigation including trials means she does not shy away from fighting to the end to achieve justice. A San Diego native, Amy’s passion for the law developed prior to law school when she worked as a paralegal for a solo practitioner in La Jolla. During that time, she also devoted hundreds of pro bono hours with the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program. Providing life-saving legal aid to these individuals was an empowering experience which provided insight into the unique role lawyers play in society to help those confronted with injustice or injury. While not working, Amy enjoys yoga, traveling, live music, and rescuing and petting as many dogs as possible.

Benjamin Schonbrun

Benjamin Schonbrun & Partners have represented numerous plaintiffs in sexual harassment, race discrimination, wrongful termination, pregnancy discrimination and disability discrimination which resulted in settlements in the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.