Renato Flores Hired as Joseph V. Kaplan Workers’ Rights Fellow

Renato Flores Hired as Joseph V. Kaplan Workers’ Rights Fellow

Press Release

August 17, 2022 – Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C. welcomes Renato Flores as the firm’s third Joseph V. Kaplan Workers’ Rights Fellow. He joins the firm after graduating from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he received a law degree with a Labor and Employment Law certificate.

Mr. Flores worked as a law clerk at Legal Aid at Work (LAAW), where he advocated for the rights of low-wage workers to ensure proper pay and working conditions. At LAAW, he represented a client before the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and won reversal of an overpayment claim. Mr. Flores also worked with the firm Outten & Golden providing legal research to attorneys in California and New York on an array of employment law issues to ensure fair treatment of workers. He served as a judicial extern with Judge Charles E. Wilson II (now Court of Appeal Justice Wilson) in the Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Before law school, Mr. Flores received his degree in Legal Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. There he assisted low-wage workers with employment issues while interning with California Rural Legal Assistance in Watsonville, California. As a first-generation Mexican-American and a native Spanish Speaker, Mr. Flores spoke with many clients dealing with employment issues which resonated with his own life experiences. Coming from a low-income household, Mr. Flores understood all too well how one’s employment dictates how one can live their life.

“Being a paycheck away from not being able to pay rent or afford food can be some of the scariest moments in a worker’s life, especially when they have a family to care for. Helping individuals resolve these matters favorably can make an enormous difference in a person’s life and I am seeking to continue to do that work with the great team at Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C.,” said Mr. Flores.

Mr. Flores’s fellowship is named for Joseph V. Kaplan, Esq., a founder of Passman & Kaplan in Washington, DC, a law firm dedicated to workers’ rights for the last 30 years, where Mr. Schwartz first began private practice. Mr. Kaplan died in 2020 from complications of Covid-19. A Washington Post tribute to Mr. Kaplan is here.

“Joe was the person who taught me what it means to be a strong and passionate advocate for workers,” said Mr. Schwartz of the fellowship. “We lost Joe and so many others to Covid-19, but it is a fitting tribute to him that the next generation of civil rights lawyers be trained in his honor,” he added. “I look forward to embodying the principles that Joe stood for,” Mr. Flores said.

Since 2009, Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C. has dedicated itself to continuing the struggle for civil rights and equal employment opportunity, and helping Americans from every background to achieve their highest career potential. The firm focuses on individual, class, and collective actions involving discrimination and retaliation, harassment, denied disability accommodations, whistleblower reprisal, wage and hour violations, federal employees’ rights, and severance negotiations.