Brian Olney is a partner at Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP, specializing in employment and civil rights law. He represents plaintiffs in state court, federal court, and arbitration proceedings, and at all stages of litigation, from pre-litigation negotiations through discovery, trial, and appeal.
Mr. Olney’s cases include:
- Peck v. County of Orange, Case No.: 2:19-cv-04654 DSF (AFMx): lead trial counsel, obtained $5.7 million verdict under the Americans with Disabilities Act in wrongful death case challenging the fatal shooting of a visually impaired man inside of his own home.
- Urquidi v. City of Los Angeles, Case No. 22STCP04044: largely ended the unconstitutional practice of detaining individuals based only upon their inability to pay cash bail; awarded the California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award with co-counsel.
- Liu v. CalPERS, Case No. 19STCP04056: obtained a writ of mandate requiring CalPERS to reverse an illegal rule change for approximately one million Classic Member employees and retirees and provide the retirement benefits it had unlawfully withheld.
- Confidential arbitration award: lead trial counsel, obtained a total award of $3.1 million including $1,000,000 in punitive damages in employment retaliation arbitration representing a senior executive for a Fortune 500 company.
- Confidential settlement: $6.3 million confidential settlement in a multi-plaintiff employment discrimination case.
- Confidential settlement: $4.5 million confidential settlement on behalf of a senior entertainment executive following a wrongful termination.
- Estate of Michael Lee v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Case No. 2:20-cv-01161-JAM-CKD: $1.4 million settlement in a wrongful death case involving the preventable suicide of an inmate suffering from mental illness.
- Confidential settlement: $845,000 confidential pre-litigation settlement in a sexual harassment case.
- Zion v. County of Orange, Case No. 8:14-cv-01134-JVS-JDE: trial counsel, obtained $360,000 verdict for pain and suffering from excessive force— one of the Top 40 California Civil Rights Verdicts in 2019.
- Meares v. Rim of the World Unified School District, 269 F. Supp. 3d 1041 (C.D. Cal. 2016): a high school student with disabilities; obtained a $1 million settlement, the creation of a Parent Advisory Board for parents of special needs students who attend the district’s schools, and the first federal court decision recognizing an equal right under the IDEA for students with disabilities to participate in extracurricular activities.
- Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development v. City of Garden Grove, Case No. 30-2019-01102770: obtained a preliminary injunction stopping the illegal sale of a 100-acre greenfield to for-profit developers.
- Ended Amazon.com’s discriminatory practice of prohibiting sellers from using its website based only upon their country-of-origin.
Mr. Olney is a trainer at the annual trial college held by California Employment Lawyers Association, the statewide organization of more than 1,300 California employment attorneys. He was named to the Daily Journal’s 2024 “Top Labor & Employment Lawyers” list honoring the top labor and employment lawyers in California. He received the California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award in 2024 along with attorneys from Munger Tolles & Olson, Civil Rights Corp. and Public Justice for his work in Urquidi v. City of Los Angeles, Case No. 22STCP04044, which largely ended the unconstitutional use of cash bail in Los Angeles County. Mr. Olney was named to the Southern California Super Lawyers lists as a Rising Star each year from 2018 through 2024, the Up-and-Coming 100 list in 2024, and as a Super Lawyer in 2025 and 2026; to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers national list each year from 2021 through 2025; and to the Best Lawyers in America in the fields of Civil Rights Law, Employment Law – Individuals, and Litigation – Labor and Employment in the 2025 and 2026 Editions. Mr. Olney and his cases have been frequently featured in the media including in the Washington Post, LA Times, Orange County Register, Inside Edition, CBS, ABC, NBC, Daily Journal, OC Weekly, and Voice of OC.
Prior to joining Hadsell Stormer, Mr. Olney clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Margaret M. Morrow of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Mr. Olney graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Irvine in 2013. He received awards for the highest performance in seven courses and was awarded Best Oral Argument in the UC Irvine Moot Court Competition.
From 2001 through 2010, Mr. Olney worked for the Service Employees International Union and its affiliates, leading campaigns to help healthcare workers win a voice on the job. While at SEIU, Mr. Olney also served as a Research Director and led lobbying efforts to pass legislation strengthening nursing home transparency and oversight.
Admissions
Memberships
- National Lawyers Guild
- California Employment Lawyers Association
- American Constitution Society, Next Generation Leader
Education
- J.D., University of California, Irvine School of Law
- B.A., Wesleyan University
Published Work
- Paycheck Protection or Paycheck Deception? When Government “Subsidies” Silence Political Speech, in 4 UC IRVINE L. REV. 881 (2014)
- Collective Bargaining is Not the Cause of State Budget Problems, in WHEN STATES GO BROKE: ORIGINS, CONTEXT AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE AMERICAN STATES IN FISCAL CRISIS (Peter Conti-Brown & David Skeel eds., Cambridge University Press) (2012) (with Catherine Fisk)
- Nurse Staffing and Deficiencies in the Largest For-Profit Nursing Home Chains and Chains Owned by Private Equity Companies, HEALTH SERVICES RES. (2011) (with Charlene Harrington, Helen Carrillo, and Taewoo Kang)
- Ownership, Financing, and Management Strategies of the Ten Largest For-Profit Nursing Home Chains in the United States, INT’L J. HEALTH SERVICES (2011) (with Charlene Harrington, Clarilee Hauser, and Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau)
Classes & Seminars
- Trainer and presenter, California Employment Lawyers Association trial college (May 2025)
- Panelist, “When the Workplace Investigator is Deposed, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Labor & Employment Law section Retreat (April 29, 2023)
- Panelist, “Discrimination through the Health and Safety Lens and Vice Versa,” American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, Workplace and Occupational Safety and Health Law Committee 2023 Midwinter Meeting (March 9, 2023)
- Guest lecturer at UCI School of Law and UCLA School of Law courses on oral advocacy, lawyering skills, and civil rights litigation
- Featured speaker on Pre-Litigation Discovery & the CPRA (Jan. 2020) at the National Police Accountability Project CLE sponsored by the National Lawyers’ Guild and the ACLU
Awards & Accolades
- California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) – 2024
- Best Lawyers in America (2025 and 2026 Editions)
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers – 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Southern California Super Lawyers – Southern California Super Lawyer, 2025, 2026
- Southern California Super Lawyers Up-and-Coming 100: 2024 Southern California Rising Stars
- Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star – 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024
