PHYLLIS W.  CHENG, ESQ .

Phyllis W. Cheng delivers strategic solutions as a mediator.  She is on the neutral panels of ADR Services, Inc., California Court of Appeal, Second and Sixth Appellate Districts, and U.S. District Court, Central District of California, where she led the Mediation Practice Group for four years. Profiled in the Daily Journal, its Resolution Issue cover story, and virtual mediation article, Ms. Cheng has resolved disputes on employment, wage and hour, civil rights, class actions, appeals, and other matters.

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Ms. Cheng was a Partner at global firm DLA Piper, Of Counsel at employment firm Littler Mendelson, and an Associate at civil rights firm Hadsell & Stormer.

 

Ms. Cheng served in the administrations of California Governors George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. For nearly seven years, she was Director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) (later renamed the Civil Rights Department), the largest state civil rights agency in the United States. During the Great Recession, Ms. Cheng oversaw six and seven-figure judgments and settlements, the largest systemic cases in  the first 60 years of DFEH history, and filed over 500 actions on behalf of individual Californians. She established a dispute resolution division, a special investigations unit, and an education pipeline with law schools and colleges, automated complaint filing, and reformed the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Ms. Cheng was also a Senior Appellate Court Attorney, Deputy Attorney General, and Vice Chair of the Fair Employment and Housing Commission and Comparable Worth Task Force, and member of the Commission on the Status of Women. Before becoming a lawyer, she was Title IX Coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District, founded and directed an independent commission that monitored a Title VII class action consent decree promoting women administrators, and was responsible for the enactment of California's version of the Title IX law.

 

Ms. Cheng is co-editor of California Fair Housing and Public Accommodations (The Rutter Group Civil Litigation Series), author of the California Lawyers Association's Labor & Employment Case Law Alert, former managing editor of and current columnist at the California Labor & Employment Law Review, and contributor to the Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journal, Bender's Labor & Employment Bulletin, Legal Perspectives, and the AAM-A-GRAM. The State Bar of California named her the 2012 Ronald M. George Public Lawyer of the Year. Inside Counsel Magazine featured her on its May 2014 cover.  In addition, she has made hundreds of presentations.

 

Ms. Cheng received her B.A. and M.Ed. from UCLA, J.D. from Southwestern Law School, and Ph.D. from USC, where she was a James Irvine Fellow in Urban and Regional Planning.