Berger & Williams, LLP

Focus and practice areas

Employment law is the firm's main focus, and it represents both workers and companies across California. Berger & Williams handles discrimination claims based on race, sex, age, disability, and other protected characteristics. It also takes on sexual harassment matters, retaliation, and wrongful termination.

California gives employees a wide set of protections in these areas, often broader than federal law. A claim can start with a state agency, a federal agency, or a direct court filing, and the choice affects deadlines and remedies. The firm works in all three settings, which gives it room to pick the route that fits a client's facts.

Wage and hour and workplace agreements

Unpaid overtime, minimum wage questions, and expense reimbursement make up the wage and hour side, and California enforces the reimbursement rule closely. These claims often turn on time records and pay stubs, so the paper trail carries much of the weight. The firm also handles leaves of absence, where a worker's rights under overlapping state and federal statutes can be hard to sort out.

The firm also drafts and reviews the agreements that set the terms of a job. That work covers employment contracts, arbitration clauses, non-compete terms, confidentiality provisions, and severance agreements. California limits how far a non-compete can reach, and getting that language right at the start can keep a later dispute short. In my opinion, a practice that litigates and drafts in the same field tends to catch a problem in a contract before it reaches a courtroom.

Working with employees and employers

Many firms in this area pick a side. Berger & Williams represents both employees and employers, and it takes single-party claims as well as class action litigation.

The scale of a matter can vary widely. One case may center on a single worker's termination. Another may cover a pay practice that affects a whole class.

For employers, the firm counsels on compliance, workplace policies, and internal investigations. This advisory work runs alongside its litigation, and it gives the firm a view of a dispute from the management side as well as the employee's. Counsel who has argued both positions can often predict how the other side will read a policy. That dual view can matter in settlement talks, where each side weighs the risk of going before a jury.

Business litigation and trade secrets

The firm's litigation reaches past employment into general business disputes. Its pages name trade secret and proprietary information cases, matters that often grow out of a departing employee or a broken confidentiality agreement. Proprietary information disputes can involve customer lists, pricing data, or technical methods a company treats as secret.

These cases connect to the firm's employment work in a direct way. A non-compete argument and a trade secret claim often land in the same file. As a reviewer, I read that overlap as a firm building its business litigation around the employment questions it already knows. Trade secret matters move quickly at the start, since one side often asks a court to freeze the use of the information before the full case is heard.

How the team is built

The site names three attorneys. Harvey C. Berger and Timothy G. Williams are the partners, and Beniza O. Cancino is an associate. The two names on the door match the two partners, which points to a practice still run by its founders.

A group this size keeps the partners close to each matter. Clients at a three-lawyer firm usually work with the person handling their case directly. The site lists names and titles for the attorneys and does not publish individual bios or law school details. Continuity like that can help when a matter spans years, since the same lawyers stay with the file.

What the record shows

The firm was founded in 1996 and marks 30 years of practice in 2026. That span carries its work through several rounds of change in California employment law, a body of rules that shifts often. A firm that has kept the same focus since 1996 has seen the state's overtime and harassment rules rewritten more than once.

The firm states that it has recovered more than $50 million for individuals and classes over the past 20 years. It also states that its partners hold an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell, a peer-review mark tied to a lawyer's legal ability and ethical standards. Both figures come from the firm's own account, and a reader can weigh them on that basis.

How an employment claim tends to move

Readers new to this area may find the path of a claim useful. Many discrimination and harassment claims pass through the California Civil Rights Department or a federal agency before a lawsuit begins. The firm represents clients before administrative agencies, so it can act at that early stage.

Wage and hour class actions follow their own track. A named plaintiff represents the group, and the court decides whether the class can proceed as one before the merits are reached. These claims turn on payroll records and written policies, and one filing can cover hundreds of workers. Berger & Williams handles both single-party claims and class actions, and it appears in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies across California.