About Cathe Caraway-Howard, Esq.

Cathe L. Caraway-Howard, principal of the Employee Rights Law Group, has practiced employment law in California since 1989. Born in Berlin, Germany only months after the Berlin Wall was built, Cathe has always had a sense of humanity’s injustices. She grew up in the San Fernando Valley attending El Camino Real High School when the LAUSD was bussing students across the city in a failed attempt to promote racial integration. That experience gave her an early awareness of the shadow of discrimination.

Cathe received a Bachelor’s of Arts in International Relations from University of California Davis, and went to work for a food cooperative in Santa Monica, seeking a way to bring justice to the hungry. Eventually, law school became the obvious route to doing justice. Thus, on June 4, 1989, Tian an Men Square Day, Cathe graduated from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles.

Cathe’s legal career had already begun while she was in law school, with work for the Center for Immigrant Rights, and the Western Center on Law and Disability. She also worked at the law offices of Leroy S. Walker, and Greene, O’Reilly, Broillet, Taylor & Wheeler while she was a law student.
After graduation from law school and admission to the California State Bar in 1989, Cathe worked for Gordon, Edelstein, & Krepack, on their employment cases along with personal injury cases. Cathe was an early member of the group headed by the legendary Joseph Posner known as LEFTJAW (“Legal Eagles for Truth, Justice, and the American Way”), as well as being a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association since 2006.

After the birth of her daughter in 1993, Cathe returned to solo practice, representing employees and management in employment matters. Seeking a change of pace, from 2004 to 2009, Cathe headed the Employment Department of the Bander Law Firm in Los Angeles. It was there that Cathe started handling wage and hour class action litigation, successfully representing thousands of workers and recovering millions of dollars in unpaid wages.

Since returning to run her own firm in May 2009, Cathe’s practice has emphasized discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, wage and hour, and class action litigation. She has recovered millions for her clients in back and future wages, and helped many employees negotiate the shark-infested waters of employment rights. From time to time. Cathe has also defended small businesses, giving her a particular insight to the issues both sides face in employment disputes.
In 2015, Cathe won the case Mendiola v CPS Security Solutions 60 Cal.4th 833, in which the California Supreme Court rejected the importation of federal regulations that are less protective of California wage orders and changed 24-year old law for California workers. The Daily Journal named Cathe as one of the 2015 Top Employment Lawyers in California, and she has been chosen a Super Lawyer for 2014, 2015, and 2016.

“Fighting for the little guy” means working hard to vindicate the rights of hard-working men and women all over California, and stand up to law-breaking employers who do not respect workers’ rights. It is a motto that inspires Cathe every day to bring justice to the American workplace.