Cynthia O'Neill has dedicated her legal
career to public sector labor and employment law. For 18 years, she has
represented cities, counties and special districts in disciplinary
appeals, administrative hearings, arbitrations, collective bargaining,
and in litigation.
Cynthia convinced the
California Court of Appeal, in the Gilbert v. City of Sunnyvale
(2005) 130 Cal.App.4th 1264 opinion, to limit a police
officer’s right to receive investigatory documents under both the
Skelly due process procedures and the Public Safety Officers
Procedural Bill of Rights Act.
Cynthia has negotiated
the transfer of a municipal police department to a county sheriff. She
has successfully represented clients both during trial and on appeal and
was one of the attorneys of record on the Ninth Circuit Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) opinions of Barner v. City of Novato (9th
Cir. 1994) 17 F.3d 1256 and Stanley, et al. v. City of Tracy (9th
Cir. 1997) 120 F.3d 179. She drafted an appellate amicus brief on behalf
of 136 California cities and towns in Stewart/Chan v. City and County
of San Francisco (1993) 834 F.Supp. 1233, affirmed by unpublished
opinion (9th Cir. 1995).
Cynthia
contributes regularly to the firm’s employment education activities,
both in written work and consortium presentations, on such topics as
FLSA, the Public Safety Officer’s Procedural Bill of Rights Act,
municipal personnel practices and employee discipline, the Americans
with Disabilities Act, collective bargaining under the Meyers-Milias-Brown
Act, and the prevention of sexual harassment. She has spoken at numerous
conferences and has written papers for the League of California Cities
regarding the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act and the City Attorney as
Investigator.
An increasing portion
of Cynthia’s consulting services includes assisting clients with
personnel investigations, and the auditing of FLSA policies and
practices, personnel rules, and employer-employee relations policies.
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