Outten & Golden LLP, a preeminent employee rights law firm, is pleased to announce that Melissa E. Pierre-Louis has been promoted to Counsel and that Erin M. Pressman has joined the firm's growing San Francisco office as an associate, representing individual employees in litigation and negotiation in all areas of employment law.

Melissa E. Pierre-Louis will continue to build her growing successful practice in the area of individual discrimination and wage-and-hour matters, including her focus in the area of disability and leave laws. She is Co-Chair of firm's Family Responsibilities and Disability Discrimination Practice Group. Before promotion to Counsel, Ms. Pierre-Louis was an associate in the New York office. Before joining Outten & Golden, Ms. Pierre-Louis worked as a public interest fellow at Beldock, Levine & Hoffman LLP, where she worked primarily on labor and employment matters. She received her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2008. Ms. Pierre-Louis is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and its New York affiliate; the American Bar Association; and the New York City and State Bar Associations. In the ABA, she is the Co-Chair of the FMLA subcommittee of the Federal Labor Standards Legislation Committee of the Section of Labor & Employment. She is also the former Chair of the National Employment Lawyers Association's Lawyers of Color Committee.

Before joining the firm as an associate in the San Francisco office in 2016, Erin M. Pressman worked as an associate at The Grey Law Firm. While attending law school, Ms. Pressman worked as a law clerk at Outten & Golden, Campins Benham-Baker, and the East Bay Community Law Center. Ms. Pressman also served as a judicial extern to Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye of the California Supreme Court. A 2015 graduate of University of California, Hastings College of the Law, Ms. Pressman represents individual employees in litigation and negotiation in all areas of employment law.

"We are very pleased to promote our long-time colleague Melissa and to welcome Erin as a new colleague," said Wayne N. Outten, the firm's managing partner. "The experience and capabilities of these attorneys will contribute to the firm's ability to represent individual employees and to advocate effectively for their rights through advice, counseling, negotiation, and litigation."

Outten & Golden LLP focuses on advising and representing individuals in employment, partnership, and related workplace matters both domestically and internationally. The firm counsels individuals on employment and severance agreements; handles complex compensation and benefits issues (including bonuses, commissions, and stock/ option agreements); and advises professionals (including doctors and lawyers) on contractual issues. It also represents employees with a wide variety of claims, including discrimination and harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, disability, national origin, religion, and age, as well as retaliation, whistleblower, and contract claims. The firm handles class actions involving a wide range of employment issues, including economic exploitation, gender- and race-based discrimination, wage-and-hour violations, violations of the WARN Act, and other systemic workers' rights issues.

Outten & Golden has nine practice groups: Executives & Professionals, Financial Services, Sexual Harassment & Sex Discrimination, Family Responsibilities & Disabilities Discrimination, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Workplace Rights, Discrimination & Retaliation, Whistleblower Retaliation, Class & Collective Actions, and WARN Act.