Welcome to this episode of the Justice Team Podcast on the Justice Team Network, where we give practical advice to lawyers out there. And I'm your host Bob Simon. I'm honored to have the Ms. Jamie Wright on today. How are you, Ms. Wright? I'm doing incredible sitting next to the one and only extraordinary Bob Simon. Well, you had me at extraordinary, what can I say?
Um, for those of you that don't know Jamie, she is an employee rights extraordinaire from the disability cases to the workplace discrimination. Has had some eight figure verdicts and has helped a whole lot of people out. Thank you. First of all, where do people find you? Oh, I'm easy to find social media is my like kind of go to. So Instagram, Jamie Wright, ESQ, my website is Jamie Wright, ESQ. If you Google me, Jamie E. Wright, ESQ, it all kind of links to the same place.
And do you practice all over California? What's everywhere? Literally from like counties you've never heard of that I've only recently heard of like Hollister County. to San Diego County and everywhere in between. Um, so what are some of the areas like your bread and butter, the stuff that you'd like to do that you're passionate about?
Yeah, I'm really passionate about disability discrimination cases, um, sexual harassment, hostile work environment, race discrimination, though they're harder to prove. But, um, sometimes in California, you get these, um, employers who. act insane, and I call them insane, for calling people the N word, telling, um, my Brown brothers to go back to Mexico, you know, harassing them and those kinds of things. And also some wage and hour cases. Yeah, so what is a wage and hour case?
You're not being paid overtime, uh, you're not getting your meal arrest breaks, and sometimes with those, if you make a complaint and you get retaliated against or you're fired or your hours are reduced, those are good cases too. Wow. Yeah, so what's a typical fact pattern for, um, a disability case, the stuff that you've been doing very well on and helping folks. What are some examples?
Yeah, so I've gotten a lot of like nurses that are like during the COVID, like when the surge was happening, if they had like an illness or they had a medical condition and they asked for an accommodation and the employer didn't want to accommodate them and they fired them. Um, or if someone is like neurodivergent, um, they have like ADHD or anxiety not getting an accommodation or if they need a buildout, cause you have back problems.
I have back problems, um, sometimes and the employer won't build out the chair or the desk or something like that. And you know, do you ever have hybrid cases? Cause a lot of our personal injury cases, we have a lot of people that aren't being, I think about it, I probably think of a few that. You don't have injuries or they're not accommodated with it, work.
So if you had to talk to us, personal injury lawyers or people out there that are representing the injured folks, what are some things that we should be telling our clients to do other than just call you and stuff that they have to do to, kind of check those boxes with the employer. What are some things they need to do if they're being discriminated against? Put it in writing.
Put it in writing and cc yourself because you'd be surprised how many emails disappear from the employer's, um, email service. So cc yourself. Cc your personal email. Oh yeah, cc your personal email when you're writing these emails if you're doing it from the employer. Or bcc so they don't know. Or bcc. That's a, that's a key tip. Um, and then you can always make a complaint, um, besides their HR department to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing if you think it's happening.
And you're not quite yet ready to talk to a lawyer. Yeah, so what are the steps somebody has to go through in order to even file, uh, disability discrimination? Is there an administrative process? Yeah, what's that like? The, um, California Civil Rights Division, which used to be called the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. So you have to make a complaint to them first, you gotta get a right to sue.
Some people want to go to EEOC do not go to EEOC in my opinion You have a shorter window of time to file your lawsuit 90 days. What's the new the new thing called California Civil Rights Division? You know what? That's much better than the one before because every time people would tell me is like what does that have to do with like?
work It was just trailing the law because the law is called the Fair Employment Housing Act So Department of Fair Employment Housing, but California Civil Rights is definitely a better So they have to file and do they Do they have an attorney? Do they hire you to do that or do they do it on their own? They can do it themselves.
I have some clients that do it themselves and sometimes they ask the department to do an investigation and then, you know, sometimes the department offers mediation or you can have your lawyer do it. I prefer to do it.
Yeah, so those are kind of what are some other examples for people that are listening or watching if they or a loved one or if they have a client that's being discriminated against, what are some of the common ways you do other than we talked about the neurodivergent And, uh, the nurses that you've been representing. Oh, yeah.
So, um, if someone can't drive a long distance, like I had one lady who, um, fell at her house and she couldn't drive a long distance, um, someone who has a vision problem, a hearing problem, I do have a guy who had hearing loss, um, I had one lady who was losing hair from her scalp, um, due to stress. So there's a whole broad range of them. And I assume that, um, What's the intake like for you? Because I would assume you get a lot of calls. I do. I have an intake person now.
One of my paralegals. They typically, like, click on the thing on my website. There's like a button and they send us a message and I forward them to my intake person. He has a really detailed questionnaire he goes through. Um, wanting all the background. He goes through a timeline, so he creates the initial timeline. I look at it. I say, okay, call them back and ask some additional questions. Or I just get on zoom and I talk to them.
If they are not prepared to come to me, always catch me one way. I mean, you have to sift through a lot of referrals cause I mean, how, how many do you think calls you get per week or actual cases that you end up taking? I probably get 15 to 20 hits to my website plus calls. Wow. Um, probably one to two cause it's just, I can't, okay. help everybody at once. And the other thing is I oftentimes don't take cases from other lawyers.
Like if they've had another lawyer for an extended period of time and they want to send it to me. It just gets a little tricky, but you could refer it a lot of work. Yeah, I do. I do refer you cases Yeah, and I take I take them if it's referred out right, but like say you had litigated the file for six months I may not Well, I wouldn't touch a file that Disrespect be all you like in these cases. I think that's the beauty of you know, what you do with mentorship Yeah.
With Justice HQ and stuff like that. As people know you as the go to for these types of cases and questions. And I appreciate that. Justice HQ has been incredible just as a, like a resource and just as a network of friends and like creating like a family. And that's awesome when you feel like you're alone. Are you a true, I mean, you're the only attorney at your firm. Yeah. I'm the only one. And then I co counsel a lot now. Yeah. I think you have to. I mean, we still, I still co counsel a lot.
Cause. I mean, your client deserves it, one, and two, it just makes it more fun and easier. It does. It does. Because sometimes when you're under the gun and you're dealing with a justice system that is not so blind. You have to have that support. Yeah, so tell us about the other types of, um, the cases. We got the disability discriminations, what that you do, and the workplace discrimination. Yeah. So what's the workplace discrimination bucket look like? What types of cases?
Sex harassment, hostile work environment based on gender, um, cases where a supervisor is making a pass, quid pro quo, um, or just like sexual comments. Images in the workplace, um, text messages that are inappropriate, sending porn in a text message. I mean, social media is crazy with what it's done in terms of everything is safe to everything's out there. Literally, you can't get away from it.
Like if you're going to send a message on Instagram, I could imagine you see some good stuff like people, their DMS, even Snapchats, all this crazy stuff. DMS are wild. Why would you ever as a supervisor DM the employee at one o'clock in the morning and saying what you're doing? Oh man. Really? People do these things? Yeah, and they proceed to send, um, your private parts. And it's always the guys. Always the guys. Man. Always the guys. Although I, I, no discrimination.
It just tends to be the biggest percentage of the sex harassment case. I mean, and it's so like, it's so much more prominent where the other people, well, it's probably not. It's probably always been there, it's just people are talking about it now more, right? They're more comfortable, yeah. And sometimes they're not, and I've had some that have come to me and they've been scared. Like, you know, especially if they're still employed.
Like, I'm gonna be retaliated against, I may lose my job, they're gonna harass me. I have one who's still employed, and they did just that. They've been harassing her, you know. Suspensions, random drug tests. But so what, so what happens in this situation where it's like a forced termination or a constructive one where they're keeping their making so hostile that like They're making you leave.
Like, what advice do you give your clients there knowing that they're not going to be able to make rent if they leave the job? Yeah, that's the hard part. I mean, often times you can go file unemployment, right? Um, I've seen some employers be kind of like awful and challenge that, but I always tell them unless it's gross misconduct, you're still entitled to it, the unemployment. And then, you know, there's disability, there's options. Yeah, so you do a lot of those types of cases.
What are the ones you are passionate about these days in the world of Jamie Wright? The sex harassment cases, the disability. I'm passionate about all my clients. I don't really discriminate as long as they're honest with me and um, up front about all the bad facts. And are you um, You'd have to with these about have been taking calls that you get. I mean, do you have a system? Everything goes into like your backend systems gal. We've talked about this.
So why don't you tell our viewers and listeners about it? I have my case of which allows the clients to get updates, which is great because they're not feeling like they're not being communicated with. Cause they can always log in. I mean, of course my staff's available to ask their questions. You can log in yourself and you get a text message that tells you upcoming Unfortunately, I get a lot of questions about that. Why do I have to appear? I'm like, no, you don't have to appear for the CMC.
You're just getting it for information purposes. But the system we have is great and we love it. Yes. And we, we integrated a process service as well. So we pay for everything at once. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Well, it's a good thing whenever you have a case management software that integrates with all your stuff. So it just makes it easier. Yeah. We're actually building out the integration with my case and case peer. Are you an attorney? Sure. Yeah. God. So it'll be one click off.
The other one know Cleo does it now. File File Vine Lead Docket. Great. I think Solidify does all Salesforce and Oh, good. My case and Case. Case bureau. So people can just send you a lot more cases. Yes. Sometimes where we can sift through them Yeah. You just get these attorney share pings all the day, but then you have to have your network of people to refer to underneath you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm happy to, I mean, if I get, like, if I get a really great brain injury case, I'm like Bob side.
Yeah, I'll take it. It's fine with me. Yeah, so what other, so as we'll switch over to you as a human being and the stuff that you're doing, you know, being a true solo, you know, I'm sure there's, I mean, being a solo when I started too, it's hard, right? So what are some things that you are doing or advice that you can give people out there that are young lawyers that may need help or mentorship? You know, having a village is really important.
And when I mean a village family and friends that are honest with you, sincere, and they care about you. I was opposing MSJ and also taking up a writ on one of the judges this week. And one of my friends in my village was also a lawyer said, can I bring you dinner? And I didn't even ask. And I thought that was really sweet. I didn't need it because my mama lives close by. So I just got the dinner from her, but just having a village of people that love you and can support you.
And, you know, if you have a family, because you have a family and I have a small kid. having that childcare and like the village that can help you with that. So the village is important. And then like taking care of your mental and physical health is really important because who cares if you got all the money and you're unhealthy. Yeah. And a lot of people end up with toxic behavior, but the reason they do is usually because their circles are also doing toxic behavior.
Yeah. And I don't, I don't stand for that in my circle. I keep out as much toxicity as possible. I agree 100 percent with I'm actually getting texts from my wife right now because our, one of our children. Got in trouble at school today because she was, she lied for a friend who tried to bring something inappropriate into school. No, yours did too. Mine was hitting somebody at the school, so that's why. Just day two. My wife, she's like day two, like day two of school today.
Mine was hitting somebody and he was practicing his karate moves. That was the explanation he gave me in the car. So there's, there's six. He's four. He's big. Yeah. He's a big kid. You know, we're not the littlest people in the world. Me or the dad. So I'm like, it's not like we're tiny, but he was hitting. So yeah, that's all right. And I remember the first time I actually personally met you was at Lottie girl a couple of years ago.
And the first thing you said, you know, it was, you were looking for mentorship and I said, well, let me put you in a circle of, of women. Yeah. And I was like, well, here's people that are great employment lawyers that I know. And, you know, And the huge verdict I was on was because of that. Oh yeah, that's right. But this is what the best thing about this is, like, within seconds, they're responding.
Like, these are the busiest female trial lawyers in the space, and they respond right away, and then, then it was off from there. You know, you met a lot of people. Yes. And that's, I think it's important. People just don't realize that how open to help everybody is. That are good people, right? So. Literally. And you didn't have to do that. And, you know, most people might even be shy, but I was like, I think that's Bob Simon. I'm gonna go roll up on him and have this conversation. Oh man.
I remember we were coming out of the um, that was at La Costa. Yeah. The Omni La Costa. Those rooms were so hard to find. Yeah they were. And like your very pregnant wife who was so cute with her belly out. I was like oh my god she's so cute. She had hot pink belly out. We gotta find that photo for this episode because it was epic. I try to hide most of my pregnancy photos because I was 55 before. pounds over my weight now. I was like, I still don't know where that weight went.
I was like BJ, this is why you so big. Oh yeah, it's 55 pounds. I was 135. I was 185 at the end of my pregnancy. God bless you. I can, I can never do that tolerance. And if anybody discriminates somebody against somebody cause they're pregnant or tries to terminate, you know, to call, you know, to talk to Ms. Jamie, right? Well, Jamie, I want to thank you for coming on this episode of the justice team podcast on the justice team network. They can ping the show.
They want to get ahold of us or questions. Um, Jamie, right? Law or S E S Q. Is that your name? Jamie, J A M I E W R I G H T E S Q. is the Instagram handle, and you can slide into her DMs. Please, no dick pics. No dick pics. Nope. Not at 2am, either. Especially if you're not working with her. One of these creeps. Creeps and croops. Well, thank you for coming on. This was nice. I appreciate it.