Filing Your Administrative Charges of Discrimination, Retaliation & Harassment Online

In the course of providing our free initial consultation to our prospective clients in our San Diego, Orange County and San Francisco offices, we regularly field questions from prospective clients about their employment law claims including discrimination, retaliation and harassment.

In some cases, our clients have conducted research on their discrimination, retaliation and harassment in advance of meeting with us and have already taken steps to file their administrative charge(s) of discrimination, retaliation and harassment with the appropriate state or federal agency before meeting with us.

A Practical Approach For Our San Diego, Orange County & San Francisco Clients

For those clients who have not researched the issue, we typically advise those clients of their rights with regard to filing such charges. We normally recommend that our clients allow us to handle the filing of their charges, when they hire us to pursue their claims. This is due to the fact that our clients who are unfamiliar with the administrative process involved in filing such claims, can have a difficult time deciding on which administrative process to follow. The selection of an administrative process can be complicated and obtaining help at the outset of the claim can be instrumental in ensuring that all of your employment rights are protected.

First, filing an administrative charge(s) is a mandatory prerequisite to pursuing claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in court for violations of California’s anti-discrimination laws. Significantly, there are short deadlines to file such charges and if those deadlines are not met, your charges can be barred forever.

In filing charges of discrimination, retaliation and harassment, you have the option of filing with California’s Department of Fair Employment & Housing (“DFEH”) or the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). Generally, we recommend filing with the DFEH rather than the EEOC. The DFEH has offices conveniently located in San Diego, Orange County and San Francisco. The DFEH has a longer filing period of one year versus 300 days for the EEOC. The DFEH’s website is very helpful in obtaining information.

When filing with the DFEH, you have the option of contacting your local DFEH office and setting up an in person appointment to file a charge(s) against your employer. At the in person appointment with the DFEH, you may also request that the DFEFH investigate your charge(s). However, the DFEH investigation typically takes a long time, often at least 12-16 months. For the most part, our experience is that such a lengthy delay can hurt your case. The longer a case is delayed, the harder it is to locate witnesses or documents later when the case proceeds to court. Moreover, there is a risk that witnesses who are contacted a year or two years after the incident will forget events due to the lengthy delay. Significantly, if the DFEH investigates your charge(s) and finds “no cause” for discrimination at the conclusion of its investigation, that can hurt your chances going forward to obtain an excellent result in your case. This is due to the fact that the employer may become emboldened to avoid settlement discussions as a result of the DFEH”s decision that there was no cause for discrimination.

In the end, whether we file the charges online for you or you visit the DFEH on your own and request an investigation, the ultimate result is the same. That is, in either case, at the end of the process, you receive a “Right To Sue” letter which allows you hire an attorney to file a lawsuit and pursue your claims in court. When we file DFEH charges online on your behalf, we can print your Right To Sue letter instantaneously. Since there is no monetary award to you, even if the outcome of the DFEH investigation favors you, there is no reason we can think of to encourage you to delay your case for many months while the DFEH conducts an investigation and delays the issuing of your Right To Sue letter. Further the DFEH does not willingly comply with subpoenas for documents regarding its investigation once your case proceeds to trial and that limits the value of the DFEH investigation.

Our belief is that obtaining your Right To Sue letter instantaneously, online, is the far better approach than waiting for the results of the DFEH’s investigation for many months. If you have questions about the DFEH process, or you are considering requesting an investigation of your discrimination, retaliation or harassment claims with the DFEH in San Diego, Orange County or San Francisco, we can assist you. We can ensure that your charges are filed promptly and that all of your rights are protected. We can also ensure that there is no unreasonable delay in pursuing your claims.

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