Randall E. Strauss
Top rated Employment Litigation attorney in Oakland, California
Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer
Practice areas: Employment Litigation, Civil Rights, Employment & Labor; view more
Licensed in California since: 1993
Education: University of California Berkeley School of Law
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2019 - 2026 Call today:
510-823-0323
Free Consultation Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer
1999 Harrison Street, Suite 1600Oakland, CA 94612 Visit website
Randall E. Strauss is Partner at Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer. In California, he represents clients in matters of civil litigation, business law, environmental law, employment law, civil appeals, personal injury and products liability. In 2009, The Recorder included Mr. Strauss in its Top Verdicts group, and in 2011, the Top Employment Law Firms. He was also a recipient of the American Jurisprudence Awards in legal research and writing, civil procedure, and procedure I and II.
In 1988, Mr. Strauss graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts. He then obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 1993. While in law school, he was a member of the Golden Gate University Law Review. As a knowledgeable, experienced attorney, Mr. Strauss taught a class on trial techniques in employment litigation in 2014.
Mr. Strauss is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association, the California Employment Lawyers Association, the Alameda-Contra Costa Trial Lawyers’ Association, the Consumer Attorneys of California, Public Justice and the State Bar of California.
With several seven figure settlements in his history, Mr. Strauss has earned his reputation as a successful, zealous advocate for his clients. For his high ethical standards and long list of successful results, he holds the highest peer rating possible of AV Preeminent* from Martindale-Hubbell.
Mr. Strauss is admitted to practice in California state courts and before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
* AV®, AV Preeminent®, Martindale-Hubbell Distinguished and Martindale-Hubbell Notable are certification marks used under license in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell® is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the anonymous opinions of members of the bar and the judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Rating™ fall into two categories – legal ability and general ethical standards.
Practice areas
Employment Litigation: Plaintiff, Civil Rights, Employment & Labor: Employee, Civil Litigation: PlaintiffFocus areas
Disability, Discrimination, Employment Discrimination, Employment Law - Employee, Employment Law - Employer, Race Discrimination, Retaliation, Sexual Harassment, Whistleblower, Wrongful Termination
- 50% Employment Litigation: Plaintiff
- 20% Civil Rights
- 20% Employment & Labor: Employee
- 10% Civil Litigation: Plaintiff
First Admitted: 1993, California
Professional Webpage: https://www.giccb.com/Our-Firm/Randall-E-Strauss.shtml
Bar / Professional Activity
- National Employment Lawyers Association
- California Employment Lawyers Association
- U.S. District Court Central District of California, 1998
- State Bar of California, Member, 1993 - Present
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of California, 1994
- U.S. District Court Southern District of California, 1997
- U.S. District Court Northern District of California, 1997
- U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit, 1994
- Alameda County Contra Costa County Trial Lawyers Association, 2007 - Present
- California, 1993
- Consumer Attorneys of California, 2009 - Present
- The American Association for Justice
- Public Justice, 2016
- Consumer Attorneys of California
Verdicts / Settlements (Case Results)
- O'Haire v. City and County of San Francisco and Greg Suhr -$725,000 settlement on behalf of whistleblower who claimed the Chief of Police fired her in retaliation for participating in a disciplinary case against him before he was appointed chief., 2015
- Dadesho v. Government of Iraq, 139 F.3d 766 (9th Cir. 1998)
- Li v. Trendwest: Plaintiff verdict
- Andrews v. Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC Plaintiffs' verdict worth over $2.7 million., 2013
- Wiley v. Wyndham Vacation Ownership Inc. $1,000,000 Plaintiff verdict in Employment:retaliation trial. Listed The Recorder's Top Verdicts for 2010. Verdict worth over $2,000,000 with attorneys fees and costs. At trial, Mr. Strauss gave the opening and closing statements and questioned many of the witnesses., 2010
- Co-lead counsel in Andrews v. LLNS which settled on September 30, 2015 for $37.25 Million. Represented 129 plaintiffs in a consolidated action following a mass layoff at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. After two separate 60 day trials of test plaintiffs claims, and multiple days of mediation over several months, the case settled. During the two trials, Mr. Strauss gave the opening and closing statements and questioned many of the witnesses., 2015
Videos
- Meet Partner, Randall Strauss, Meet Partner Randall Strauss, 2019
- The Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer focus on compassion experience and results when working with our clients, Compassion Experience Results, Employment Law, Personal Injury, 2021
Pro bono / Community Service
- Volunteer - Alameda County Food Bank, 2019
- Oversee firm's student internship programs , 2025
Honors
- Andrews v. Lawrence Livermore National SecurityIn 2008, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California was taken over by a private company, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. LLNS is an LLC dominated by Bechtel Corporation and the University of California. LLNS promised to save the Federal Government $50 million annually. In May of that year, LLNS fired more than 400 of the lab’s most senior workers, including many top scientists and researchers. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, they were given one hour to pack up all their belongings and return their badges before they were ‘perp-walked’ out of the lab. Fired at the height of the 2008 recession, many of those laid off experienced foreclosures, bankruptcies, divorces, depression, and physical symptoms as a direct result of their termination. 130 of these workers filed a consolidated action against the laboratory in May 2009, contending that LLNS’ promise to save the Department of Energy $50 million annually was contingent upon firing many of the laboratory’s oldest and most experienced workers. This stood in direct violation of existing layoff policies that dictated employees should be laid off in reverse order of seniority; the average seniority of those laid off was nearly 20 years. The team litigated the case for more than seven years in a process that was continually delayed by stalling tactics by the laboratory counsel. Undeterred, counsel for the plaintiffs put in over 25,000 hours in the case, although the defense firm had 200 times the number of lawyers as Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer. Despite all of the setbacks and delay tactics, the team won a $2.73 million jury verdict for past and future economic loss on claims of breach of contract, and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing for five test plaintiffs as part of a two-phase trial. The team was then able to negotiate a $37.25 million settlement for 129 of the 130 plaintiffs—the equivalent of over three years’ salary for each plaintiff. The defense insisted the settlement be confidential. Plaintiffs’ counsel refused to agree to confidentiality, arguing the public had a right to know how its tax dollars are being spent. The Andrews case sheds light on how the George W. Bush administration’s decision to privatize a national security laboratory had devastating impacts on workers and the nation’s safety, as decades of knowledge and experience left the lab as a result of the layoffs. The case affected all workers at the Lawrence Livermore lab and approximately 10,000 workers at its sister lab in Los Alamos by establishing standards under which permanent employees can be laid off, hopefully ensuring that no other injustice like this can ever happen at those laboratories again. Team: Gary Gwilliam, Randall E. Strauss, and Robert J. Schwartz of Gwilliam, Ivary, Chiosso, Cavalli & Brewer in Oakland, Calif.; and Omar Habbas of Habbas & Associates in San Jose, Calif., Trial Lawyer of the year finalist, https://www.publicjustice.net/public-justice-announces-finalists-2016-trial-lawyer-year-award/, 2016
- 1-23-2025 Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer was selected as the Law Firm of the Year by the Alameda County Bar Association. The firm supports the bar association, participates as section leaders and beyond committee involvement partnered and hosted the first Mocktail Mix & Mingle social event. This alcohol-free event was a huge success., Alameda County Bar Association: Distinguished Service Award- Law firm of the year, Alameda County Bar Association, 2025
- J. Gary Gwilliam and Randall E. Strauss Colombo, et al. vs. BNC Mortgage, Inc., et al.JUSTICE FOR WOMEN WHO BLEW THE WHISTLE ON FRAUDULENT LENDING Six women who worked at the Sacramento branch of BNC Mortgage, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Lehman Brothers that specialized in sub-prime mortgages, each complained to their superiors about fraudulent lending practices in 2005. Each of them was told to look the other way and when they persisted in expressing their concerns, these women were subjected to retaliation, sexual harassment and other forms of abuse that was designed to force them to quit. The sexual harassment was inflicted by a supervisor as a direct response to their whistleblowing about fraudulent loan packages and was sanctioned by company officials as a way to force the women either to resign or to approve falsified loans in order to get the harassment to stop. These women were sounding an alarm that went unheeded. Lax and fraudulent underwriting packages led to the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, helping to precipitate the downfall of Lehman Brothers and with it the worldwide economy. Rather than being lauded as heroes for reporting practices that ultimately led to financial ruin for many thousands of Americans, each of these women were instead victimized by the company they were trying to protect. BNC closed its doors and Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in January 2008. After nearly 14years of litigation, with bankruptcy imposing a threat that no compensation would be possible, these six women received a significant settlement. Each of them would say that they battled this corporate behemoth for so many years because of the harm caused to the public by BNC and Lehman Brothers’ actions.This case vindicated the rights of whistleblowers who were forced to resign after shedding light on corporate greed and wrongdoing, upheld the rights of sexual harassment victims in the workplace, and shed light on the fraudulent lending practices of one of the largest financial institutions in the world., CAOC Consumer Attorney of the Year Finalist, https://s3.amazonaws.com/membercentralcdn/sitedocuments/ca/ca/0312/1716312.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIHKD6NT2OL2HNPMQ&Expires=1602200014&Signature=4mVo5uchNZ%2FDy88GjGbu0KlP2F0%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3D%22Award%20fin, 2020
- Recognized as lead counsel in Wiley v. Wyndham in the Recorder's Top Verdicts - California's Million Dollar Verdicts, June 28, 2010., Top Verdicts, The Recorder, 2010
- Top Employment Law Groups, The Recorder, 2011
- Nation's Top One Percent, National Association of Distinguished Counsel, 2016
- Recognized by the Recorder as being a member of one of Northern California's best employment law teams., The Recorder
- AV Rated
- Finalist - Trial Lawyer of the Year 2016, Public Justice, 2016
Educational Background
- University of California, Berkeley BA in History and Political Science, 1988
- Full Tuition Honors Scholar at Golden Gate University School of Law; AmJur Award Recipient in Civil Procedure and Legal Research and Writing; Law Revew Member - Golden Gate University School of Law
Scholarly Lectures / Writings
- Effectively Handling Multiple Plaintiff Employment Law Cases, Co-Author, Effectively Handling Multiple Plaintiff Employment Law Cases, Wrongful Discharge Litigation Strategies, 2013
- Golden Gate University Law Review, Member, 1990 - 1991
- Employment Law, Trial Techniques in Employment Litigation, 2014
- Trial Techniques in Employment Litigation, Co-Presenter, Alameda County Bar Association, Employment Law, 2014
Other Outstanding Achievements
- Listed in The Recorder's Top Employment Law Firms on Plaintiff side., 2012
- Finalist - Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year, 2016
Office location for Randall E. Strauss
1999 Harrison Street, Suite 1600
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510-823-0323
Selections
- Super Lawyers: 2019 - 2026
