Benton Employment Law, PC

Who the firm represents

Benton Employment Law, PC works on the employee side of workplace disputes. The firm is based in Oakland, California, and keeps a second office in San Ramon. It takes cases across the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California for workers in conflict with their employers. Oakland places the firm in the East Bay, and the San Ramon office extends its reach into the Tri-Valley area.

The "PC" in the name marks it as a professional corporation, the standard structure for a California law practice. That employee focus shapes the matters the firm handles. It covers wrongful termination, discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and whistleblower claims. It also handles wage and hour disputes and workers' compensation. In my opinion, a list this broad points to a firm ready for contested litigation as well as quieter advisory work.

Focus and practice areas

The firm's work splits into two kinds of help. One is claims against employers over how a worker was treated, paid, or let go. The other is advice for employees weighing severance packages, executive contracts, and salary terms before they sign.

The claims it brings

Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation come up together, though the law treats them as separate questions. A discrimination claim turns on whether a protected trait drove a decision. Harassment looks at conduct severe or pervasive enough to make a workplace hostile. Retaliation covers punishment for raising a complaint in the first place. The firm names all three, which matches the common sequence where one complaint leads to the next problem.

Wage and hour claims cover a defined set of problems: unpaid overtime, missed meal or rest breaks, off-the-clock work, and the misclassification of employees as exempt or as contractors. California layers its own rules on top of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and the two do not always match. That gap is often where a wage claim is won or lost.

Which laws apply

The claims the firm cites run under named federal and state statutes. These include the Fair Employment and Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the California Family Rights Act. The firm also brings matters under the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Those citations matter to a reader because each statute carries its own filing deadlines and its own test for what counts as proof.

These statutes route claims through different bodies. A FEHA discrimination claim usually starts with an administrative complaint to California's Civil Rights Department before it can reach a courtroom. A wage and hour claim can go to the state Labor Commissioner or into a civil filing. General context like this explains why early legal review of a workplace problem often changes what an employee can recover.

Advice before a dispute

The advisory side covers the moment before a dispute exists. An employee handed a severance agreement, or an executive negotiating a new contract, faces terms that can waive rights or fix pay for years. The firm reviews and negotiates those documents. Workers' compensation runs through California's separate workers' compensation system, which has its own judges and its own claim forms.

How the team is built

Chambord Benton-Hayes founded the firm and runs it as Founder and Principal. A San Francisco native, she graduated from the University of California Law San Francisco, formerly UC Hastings, College of the Law at age twenty-four.

Her court admissions are wide for a single California practice. She is admitted to the State Bar of California and to the United States District Courts for the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California. She is also admitted to the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, and to the California Supreme Court. That range lets her appear in state trial courts, in the federal courts across California, and on appeal.

The founder's earlier career explains the firm's current direction. Before opening Benton Employment Law, she practiced in the San Francisco office of an international law firm. There she defended large employers and advised executives on how to avoid litigation. She left that work during the pandemic to represent individual employees.

Staff beyond the founder

A small team supports the litigation and advisory work. Karen Zeitvogel-Benzler is the Office Manager and Paralegal. Deborah Brazell is a Paralegal. Angel Alexander is an Associate, listed as provisionally licensed, a designation California uses for attorneys practicing under the supervision of a licensed lawyer.

What a first step looks like

The firm offers free consultations to people weighing a claim. For an employee, that first conversation is where the facts of a firing or a pay dispute meet what a statute actually requires. The firm's website describes more than a decade of this work, though it does not list a founding year.

The founder's years defending employers give the firm a view of how the other side prepares a case. As a reviewer, I read that background as useful context for an employee deciding whether to pursue a claim, since the same lawyer now works against tactics she once used.

Employment matters tend to move through set stages. Fact gathering and a demand letter usually come first, then an administrative filing where the law requires one, then negotiation, and a lawsuit if the matter does not settle. That path describes how such cases generally proceed, and any single client's route can differ. The firm's employee-only stance is the clearest signal in the material. It handles these matters from its Oakland and San Ramon offices, and it represents employees across Northern California.

Business-side counseling

The record adds a business advisory role that qualifies the employee-only description above. Benton Employment Law advises businesses on employment practices. Its stated work for companies is counseling, while the dispute matters in the record concern representation of employees. I read these as separate types of engagement. A business may approach the firm for guidance about its workplace practices, even though the firm's claims work is directed toward workers.

This distinction matters in a directory listing because counseling an employer and defending one against a claim are different assignments. The supplied material supports the former. It places preventive advice within the firm's practice without describing employer-side litigation. That makes the business work a defined part of the practice rather than a change in the firm's stated direction for contested matters.

Experience with arbitration

Chambord Benton-Hayes's biography identifies arbitration as part of her employment matter experience. The court admissions discussed above establish where she can appear in public courts. Arbitration adds a separate forum to the picture. Her profile states that she has handled both litigation and arbitration involving the types of workplace claims covered earlier in this review.

That forum detail has practical value for a prospective client whose employment agreement directs disputes to arbitration. It shows that the founder's experience reaches proceedings outside the ordinary state or federal court track. The record attributes this work directly to Benton-Hayes, which gives the directory reader a more precise account of her role than the firm's practice-area labels alone provide.

Office and contact details

The listed Oakland address is 2831 Telegraph Avenue. The firm's public telephone number is 510-650-0250, and its website is bentonemploymentlaw.com. Those details identify the specific Oakland contact point for the practice. The record presents the telephone number in two formats, but both refer to the same line.

A date in the founder's professional record

Benton-Hayes received her JD from the University of California Law San Francisco in 2010. That date adds a fixed point to the professional history described above. Her biography also places executive compensation and severance negotiations within her own work, so those engagements are attributed personally to the Founder and Principal.