San Diego employment lawyer for employers — the counseling side, not the courtroom.

Employer-side only — and counseling, not courtrooms

Search for a San Diego employment lawyer and you'll mostly find two kinds of firms: plaintiff-side lawyers who represent employees, and defense firms that step in after a lawsuit has been filed. We're a third kind. Think Legal works only for employers, and only on the preventive side — the handbooks, agreements, classifications, and exit structures that determine whether a claim ever gets filed.

If you're already being sued, we're not the right call — we refer to California litigation counsel we trust, and we're glad to make the introduction. The right time to call us is before that: when you're making your first hire, classifying a contractor, writing policies, or structuring a termination. Employment claims are won and lost years before they're filed, in the documentation employers build during calm times.

The San Diego layer on top of California employment law

California employers answer to state law plus whatever their city adds — and in San Diego County, as of late 2026, exactly one city adds anything: the City of San Diego, through its Earned Sick Leave and Minimum Wage Ordinance and, since July 1, 2026, a separate Hospitality Minimum Wage Ordinance that sets higher wage floors for large hotels (150 or more rooms) and amusement parks ($19.00 as of July 1, 2026) and for event-center workers ($21.06), rising each July 1 on a schedule that reaches $25.00 by 2030. Every other city in the county follows the state rules — though employers in the county's unincorporated areas also answer to the County's own Fair Chance Ordinance on criminal-history screening.

Minimum wage. The City of San Diego general rate is $17.75 per hour for 2026 and rises to $18.35 on January 1, 2027 (announced by the city in September 2026). The California state general rate — which governs everywhere else in the county — is $16.90 for 2026 and rises to $17.40 on January 1, 2027. Sector floors override both: the city's hospitality minimum wage above, and the statewide fast-food ($20.00) and tiered health-care ($22–$25) minimum wages. The trap for county employers: the city rate applies to any employee who performs at least two hours of work in a calendar week inside San Diego city limits. A Carlsbad or Escondido company whose staff work events, job sites, or client visits in the city can owe the city rate for those hours.

Sick leave. The city's sick-leave ordinance used to be meaningfully more generous than state law; since the state raised its floor in 2024 (SB 616), the core numbers have converged, and where state law is more generous, state law governs. But the ordinance still binds city employers in its own ways: it bars requiring more than seven days' advance notice for foreseeable sick leave, carries its own recordkeeping requirements, can cover some short-term workers in the city that state law does not, and is enforced locally by the city's Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement on top of the state Labor Commissioner.

The knock-on effect of every state increase: California's white-collar exempt salary floor is set at twice the state minimum wage for full-time employment, so each January 1 state increase silently raises the salary your exempt employees must earn. A salaried manager who cleared the threshold last year may not clear it next year — that's a reclassification check worth running every fall.

What we do for San Diego employers

Employee handbooks — with the San Diego addendum

California-compliant handbooks (meal-and-rest breaks, harassment policy, leave policies, at-will language), plus the city-specific provisions employers with San Diego city employees need: the city sick-leave policy terms, the local minimum-wage notice, and the workplace-violence prevention plan (SB 553) and harassment-training acknowledgments (SB 1343, required at five or more employees) that California now expects of nearly every employer.

Hiring documents

Offer letters, employment agreements, confidentiality and IP assignment provisions, commission agreements — drafted for California, where most national templates fail.

Contractor classification

AB 5 and the ABC test make California one of the hardest states in the country to engage independent contractors. We review classifications and draft contractor agreements that support the classification you're claiming — and tell you plainly when the role can't be papered into contractor status.

Terminations and severance

Structuring an exit before it happens: documentation review, final-paycheck timing, severance and release agreements that satisfy California and federal requirements.

Compliance audits

A focused audit of classifications, wage-and-hour practices, or exit playbooks — written findings, prioritized fixes, flat fee. The cheapest time to find an exposure is before someone else does.

Where we are

7220 Trade Street, Suite 101, San Diego, CA 92121. Sorrento Mesa — between UTC and Mira Mesa. Discovery calls and consultations run in-person or by video, whichever serves the matter. Standard office hours Monday–Friday 9–5 PT.

San Diego County employers we serve

Employers across the county and statewide California: Sorrento Valley and UTC companies, Kearny Mesa and Miramar operations, downtown and Mission Valley offices, North County manufacturers in Vista, Carlsbad, and Oceanside, South Bay logistics and trade businesses in Chula Vista and Otay Mesa, and East County employers in El Cajon, La Mesa, and Santee. Most engagements run by video and email; the Sorrento Mesa office is there when in-person helps.