Kyle D. Smith

Why This Website Exists

Most explanations of California employment law come in two flavors: too vague to act on, or too dense to finish. I started Work Lawyers to write a third kind. Every guide here is long-form on purpose, organized into chapters and sections the way the statutes are, and footnoted to the Labor Code, the regulations, and the case law, so you can check my work.

I research, write, and maintain the guides myself. I also designed and built the site they live on, which tells you something about how I spend my evenings.

The Practice

Writing about the law is half the job; using it is the other half. Work Lawyers is the name I practice under, and my cases run through Melmed Law Group P.C., where I’m a senior attorney. For the past decade, my practice has centered on representing employees in wage-and-hour disputes, including complex class actions and matters under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), in state and federal courts throughout California.

Much of that work is written advocacy: the motions that decide cases at the trial level, and appeals when they don’t. I’ve handled employment cases through the full lifecycle of individual, class, and representative litigation, from intake to judgment.

Education and Early Career

I earned my Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law in 2011 and passed the California Bar the same year. At UCLA, I served as Managing Articles Editor of the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology and as a Managing Editor of the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, and I externed for the then-Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

My first years of practice were spent in public service, first as a deputy city attorney for several California cities, then representing indigent defendants in criminal appeals. Both taught me the same lesson from opposite sides of the “v.”: cases are built in the record and the writing.

I’ve kept training since. I hold the Advocate designation from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, earned through intensive programs on depositions and trial skills, and I completed the week-long “Mediating the Litigated Case” program at Pepperdine’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. I also serve as a neutral in employment cases through Kyle D. Smith Mediations.

Beyond My Own Cases

California employment law keeps moving, and I try to move it in small ways. I’ve submitted letters to the California Supreme Court on questions these guides care about, including in Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. and Leeper v. Shipt, Inc. The guides themselves have reached millions of readers over the years.

Off the Clock

I grew up across the Southwest before law school brought me to California. I live in Irvine now with my wife and our three daughters, who have taught me more about negotiation than any seminar. When I find a quiet hour, I read and watch more science fiction than is strictly respectable, build computers and small automations, catch the occasional indie-folk show, and tinker with this website.