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- Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- - SE HABLA ESPAÑOL
Mercer Legal Group represents California employees in gender and sex discrimination claims under FEHA, Title VII, and the California Equal Pay Act. Free, confidential case review with a senior attorney.
Being treated differently because of your sex or gender can cap your pay, block a promotion, or push you out of a job you were good at. Our attorneys focus on California’s gender discrimination laws — FEHA, Title VII, and the California Equal Pay Act — and the filing deadlines that decide whether your claim survives.
A gender discrimination lawyer can explain how California and federal law protect you when your sex, gender identity, or gender expression drives how you’re treated at work. We represent employees in pay-disparity, hiring, promotion, demotion, harassment, and wrongful-termination cases tied to sex or gender.
California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) bars employers from discriminating based on sex, gender, gender identity, and gender expression, and it reaches harassment and retaliation tied to those characteristics. Federal Title VII covers sex discrimination as well, and the California Equal Pay Act (Labor Code section 1197.5) requires equal pay for substantially similar work regardless of sex. FEHA is often broader than federal law: it protects more characteristics, covers employers with as few as five employees, and gives you longer to file.
Most California gender discrimination claims start with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD); federal Title VII claims go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). An attorney can review the facts and explain which statutes fit your case.
Mercer Legal Group reviews employment law claims carefully, explains available options, and pursues appropriate remedies when the facts and law support them. Every case is different, and no attorney can guarantee a specific result.
Where the facts support a gender discrimination claim, available remedies may include:
Every case is different, and no attorney can guarantee a specific outcome.
Our California discrimination attorneys review the facts, explain your options under FEHA, Title VII, and the California Equal Pay Act, and pursue available remedies when the facts support them. From the first call, you have a senior attorney reading the file — not an intake clerk reading a script. Cases are handled on a contingency-fee basis, with no upfront cost to bring a claim.
Mercer Legal Group focuses on discrimination and retaliation claims tied to protected characteristics or protected activity. We generally do not handle standalone wage-and-hour disputes, unpaid commission claims, Kaiser Permanente matters, public agency claims, or ordinary workplace disputes with no protected legal issue.
If you’re working through a gender discrimination claim for the first time, the procedural questions matter as much as the legal ones. Below are the questions clients ask us most, with the kind of plain-English answers a senior attorney would give you on a first call.
California gives you more room than federal law. Under FEHA, courts accept circumstantial proof — pay records, comparators, shifting explanations, and timing — so you don’t need a direct comment about your sex or gender. Most California cases turn on the comparator record: how employees of another sex were paid or treated for the same role and the same conduct.
It can be. The California Equal Pay Act requires equal pay for substantially similar work regardless of sex, and the employer must justify any gap with a bona fide factor like seniority or merit, not your gender. California pay-disparity cases often turn on how your pay compares to coworkers of another sex doing the same job. If the gap lines up with sex and the explanation doesn’t hold up, you may have both an Equal Pay Act and a FEHA claim.
Possibly. Under FEHA, a denied promotion can support a claim when the employer’s stated reason doesn’t survive the comparator evidence — a less-qualified candidate outside your sex was chosen, or the criteria shifted after you applied. California promotion cases usually turn on documented qualifications measured against the person who got the role.
Yes. FEHA expressly protects gender identity and gender expression, which covers transgender employees, nonbinary employees, and anyone penalized for not matching a sex stereotype. Refusing correct pronouns, enforcing sex-based dress or grooming rules, or demoting someone after they transition can all support a FEHA claim across California.
For FEHA claims, three years from the discriminatory act to file with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), then one year after the right-to-sue notice. Federal Title VII claims have shorter EEOC deadlines, often 300 days in California. Wherever you are in California, FEHA usually gives the longer window and broader coverage.
Discrimination at work doesn’t have to define your career. If you believe you’ve been underpaid, passed over, harassed, or pushed out because of your sex or gender, contact Mercer Legal Group for a free, confidential case review with a senior attorney.
