FEINBERG JACKSON WORTHMAN & WASOW - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Committee on Employee Benefits ( Vice Chair, CLE Committee )
Andrea Obando is an associate attorney with the firm. Prior to joining the firm, Andrea was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates, where she used legal advocacy and community outreach to advocate for low-wage women experiencing employment discrimination and harassment.
During law school, Andrea was a member of the California Law Review, the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, and the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, for which she served as Co-Editor-in-Chief. She also volunteered with the Workers' Rights Clinic and received a Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship to work at Murphy Anderson PLLC, a public interest law firm that represents workers and unions. Additionally, she served as a summer law clerk for the California Teachers Association and as an extern in Legal Aid at Work's National Origin program. Prior to law school, Andrea taught middle school science and reading in inner-city Houston.
Catha Worthman is a founding partner at the firm. Through her public interest practice involving class actions, multi-plaintiff cases, and individual litigation, Catha advocates for the rights of workers, retirees, and people with disabilities. She has litigated cases involving the full range of ERISA and employee benefits issues, including breach of fiduciary duty, ESOP, pension, healthcare and long-term disability benefits, as well as wage and hour and disability rights cases. Her work has helped to recover unpaid wages and benefits for employees across a range of industries, including healthcare, transportation, fast food, and construction.
Catha often partners with nonprofit social justice organizations and labor unions in impact litigation and policy strategies. Presently, she is co-counsel with leading civil rights advocates in a case challenging discrimination against Latinos on Medi-Cal. She served as co-counsel in National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix, obtaining a favorable decision of first impression that ultimately resulted in Netflix agreeing to make its streaming video 100% accessible through closed captioning.
Catha writes and speaks frequently on her issues of expertise, including civil procedure, ERISA and other employee benefits issues, and wage and hour rights. An effective appellate advocate, she has successfully argued in the Fourth Circuit and briefed several appeals in California and federal courts.
Before joining the firm, Catha was a shareholder at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C., served as a law clerk to Judge William A. Fletcher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and worked for the Health Systems Division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Dan Feinberg is a partner in the firm. His practice focuses on employee benefits and wage and hour issues, including individual representation in disability and pension claims, class action litigation regarding breaches of fiduciary duties by fiduciaries of benefit plans, and violation of state vacation pay laws. Employee Stock Ownership Plan ("ESOP") litigation is a particular focus of his practice.
Mr. Feinberg was lead counsel in the Tribune ESOP litigation which resulted in a $32 million settlement and several published decisions in favor of the plaintiffs, as listed below.
Mr. Feinberg has been retained as an expert witness or mediator in ERISA-related litigation, and he was appointed as Special Master for settlement purposes in an ERISA class action by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Mr. Feinberg has also spoken on ERISA topics at many legal conferences, including Annual Meetings of the American Bar Association, Annual Conventions of the National Employment Lawyers Association, Annual Meetings of the Western Pension and Benefits Conference, the Los Angeles Benefits Conference, and the ERISA Litigation Conference. Mr. Feinberg was previously a shareholder at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C.
Dan Feinberg represented Ms. Abatie, arguing that Alta's review of Ms. Abatie's claim was tainted by its financial conflict of interest and that this should have reduced any judicial deference to Alta's claim denial.
Darin Ranahan is a partner in the firm. He represents workers, retirees, people with disabilities, and public benefit participants in claims of discrimination, failure to pay overtime, failure to pay pension, disability, and healthcare benefits, and breach of fiduciary duty. In addition, he represents unions in employee benefits, healthcare justice, and civil rights advocacy.
Mr. Ranahan was previously an associate attorney at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C. From 2012 to 2013, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward M. Chen of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to that he practiced employment law at a firm in Oakland, where he primarily represented workers in wrongful termination, discrimination, and wage and hour matters.
During law school, Mr. Ranahan was a law clerk with the East Bay Community Law Center's Community Economic Justice clinic and the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.
Genevieve Casey is a partner with the firm. From 2010 to 2015, Ms. Casey served as an attorney at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C., where she worked on class and individual cases involving wage and hour claims, retiree health benefits, and illegal background checks.
During law school, Ms. Casey volunteered with the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center's Workers' Rights Clinic and worked with attorneys representing clients in appeals of capital convictions as a member of the Death Penalty Clinic.
Nina Wasow is a partner in the firm. Ms. Wasow litigates individual disability and pension benefits claims as well as class action breach of fiduciary duty claims under ERISA, including claims on behalf of participants and beneficiaries in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and investors in Guaranteed Investment Contracts (GICs) and other stable value products. She has litigated extensively against service providers to retirement and welfare benefit plans that charge excessive fees, misrepresent or fail to disclose their fee structures, or use plan assets for their own benefit.
Todd Jackson is a partner in the firm. Mr. Jackson represents employees in class action cases involving overtime pay, pension benefits, and employment discrimination. He has successfully served as lead counsel or co-lead counsel in numerous class actions, including class cases against IBM, Computer Sciences Corporation, KBR, Perdue Chicken, Masco Contractors, Farmers Insurance, American Families Insurance, Kelly Moore Paint Company, Corrections Corporation of America, the Tribune Company and Wells Fargo Bank, collectively resulting in over $250 million in recovered wages and benefits.
Todd Jackson is an experienced mediator whose areas of focus include complex class and collective actions in both the employment and employee benefits areas, as well as individual cases across the employment law spectrum, including discrimination/retaliation/harassment cases, compensation disputes and ERISA benefits claims. Mr. Jackson serves as a mediator on the ADR Program for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He is also available to conduct private mediations. If you are interested in scheduling a Mediation with Mr. Jackson please contact Mina Mohebbi at (510) 269-7921 or mina@feinbergjackson.com for rates and available dates. For more information on Mr. Jackson's mediation practice, click here.
Mr. Jackson is recognized as a national leader in class actions, ERISA law, and wage and hour practice and is a frequent speaker at legal conferences on those topics. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Jackson was a shareholder at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C. He served as a law clerk to Judge Judith Keep of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
Todd Jackson, along with co-counsel from firms around the country, represented the plaintiffs, emphasizing the distinction that the law makes between people who regularly make discretionary judgments as part of their jobs, such as senior professionals or managers, and those who apply their skills but do not exercise high level control and discretion over how projects are architected and coded. The IT support workers represented by Jackson and the plaintiffs' other attorneys were certainly skilled, but they did not make judgment calls the way executives and managers do. According to the lawsuit, that made them eligible for overtime, and IBM's failure to pay it was illegal. In July 2007, the Court granted final approval of a $65 million settlement with IBM. It remains the largest overtime pay dispute settlement ever in the information technology industry. Several more IT workers have filed overtime pay class action lawsuits against similar practices since, and industry treatment of these employees is beginning to change.
Awards
Mr. Jackson has been named a "Northern California Super Lawyer" every year since 2009.
Todd Jackson, Dan Feinberg and Nina Wasow recovered $55 million in pension benefits for employees of Kelly Moore Paint who participated in the company ESOP. Using their expertise in ERISA law and their experience in securing full benefits for employees whose companies create ESOPs, these Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow attorneys reached a settlement of the case after hard-fought litigation.