Los Angeles Employment Lawyer

The city has its own minimum wage

A Los Angeles wage claim can rest on local law as well as the Labor Code, which is something workers frequently do not realize.

The ordinance is enforced by the City’s Office of Wage Standards, and the citywide rate is $18.42 per hour effective July 1, 2026.

The two-hour trigger matters for mobile workers. Delivery drivers, trades, care workers and anyone whose route crosses city lines may be covered for the hours worked inside Los Angeles even if their employer is based elsewhere.

Rates change annually. Confirm the current figure with the Office of Wage Standards when a claim is being assessed.

A city civil rights law and fair-chance hiring

Los Angeles also has a civil rights law of its own. Municipal Code § 51.03 bars discrimination in private employment, and its list of protected grounds includes some that the state Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) does not name in Government Code § 12940(a), such as employment status and source of income. Section 51.14 makes it a gap-filler: where FEHA “has occupied the field,” the city law “shall provide no separate remedy.” The City’s Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department, which enforces the law, notes in its own guidance that under FEHA “the State has authority over certain protected classes in housing and employment.”

Hiring has a city rule too. Under the Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring (Municipal Code §§ 189.01–189.02), an employer located or doing business in the city, with at least ten employees who each average two or more hours of work a week there, may not ask about criminal history until it has made a conditional offer. Withdrawing that offer over a conviction takes a written assessment linking the record to risks in the job’s duties, a copy for the applicant, and an opportunity to respond (§ 189.03). Neither rule applies where the law requires the employer to obtain conviction information, bars a person with a conviction from the position or the employer from hiring one, or the job requires possessing or using a firearm (§ 189.07). The state’s Fair Chance Act, Government Code § 12952, sets a similar pre-offer rule for employers with five or more employees.

Where a Los Angeles case is heard

Los Angeles is the one city in the county that does not route to a single civil courthouse — the Superior Court’s Filing Court Locator returns nine different unlimited-civil courthouses across its Los Angeles ZIP entries, with the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse the assignment for most of them.

One rule is worth knowing. Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(B) lists employment cases — “where the contract of employment was performed or where the employer resides or does business” — among the matters that may optionally be filed in the Central District, meaning a Los Angeles County employment case can generally be brought downtown by choice.

In federal court, Los Angeles County sits in the Western Division of the Central District of California, whose courthouses are the Mendez Courthouse at 350 W 1st Street and the Roybal Courthouse at 255 East Temple Street, both downtown.

Working in Los Angeles

The county’s employment base is the broadest in the state: health care and social assistance, professional and business services, government, hospitality, retail, manufacturing including aerospace, goods movement and logistics, entertainment production, information and finance.

Entertainment and production work in particular raises classification questions — short engagements, loan-out companies, and crew arrangements that may or may not survive the ABC test.