Austin has undergone one of the most dramatic economic transformations of any American city in recent history, evolving from a state government and university town into one of the world’s premier technology hubs, attracting major corporate relocations from Tesla, Oracle, Apple, Google, and dozens of other technology giants that have collectively created one of the most dynamic and competitive labor markets in the country. This extraordinary economic growth has generated a corresponding explosion in employment law activity — from technology workers navigating complex equity compensation arrangements and non-compete disputes to service industry workers pursuing wage theft claims and state government employees asserting civil rights protections.
Texas’s employment law framework is defined primarily by federal protections given the state’s employer-friendly legal environment. The Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 mirrors federal anti-discrimination law and is administered through the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division, creating a parallel state administrative process alongside the EEOC that experienced Austin employment attorneys navigate simultaneously. Texas’s strict at-will employment doctrine, minimal state-level wage protections, and conservative appellate courts in the Fifth Circuit make the quality of federal employment law expertise and Western District of Texas court experience particularly critical for Austin workers pursuing employment claims.
1. John Zavitsanos — Ahmad Zavitsanos and Mensing PC
- Address: 1221 McKinney St #2500, Houston, TX 77010, United States
- Phone: +17136551101
John Zavitsanos is one of Texas’s most prominent and nationally recognized trial lawyers, with a practice at Ahmad Zavitsanos and Mensing — commonly known as AZA — that has achieved extraordinary results in high-stakes commercial and employment litigation cases across Texas and nationally. Zavitsanos has been recognized by Super Lawyers Texas for many consecutive years and has been included in Best Lawyers in America, reflecting the sustained national recognition that comes from consistently delivering landmark trial results against some of the most powerful corporate defendants in the country.
While Zavitsanos’s practice spans complex commercial litigation, his employment law work — particularly in high-value executive employment disputes, whistleblower retaliation cases, and significant discrimination cases involving senior-level Texas employees — reflects the same extraordinary trial skills and strategic sophistication that define his commercial practice. For Austin executives and senior professionals facing high-stakes employment disputes where the financial consequences justify engagement of the very best Texas trial lawyers, Zavitsanos represents the highest available standard of legal advocacy.
His firm AZA’s national reputation for achieving extraordinary trial results against the most powerful defendants provides clients with both the practical advantage of exceptional representation and the strategic value of a credible litigation threat that often produces favorable negotiated outcomes before trial becomes necessary.
2. Drew Herrmann — Herrmann Law Group
- Address: 801 Cherry St Ste 2365, Fort Worth, TX 76102, United States
- Phone: +18174799229
Drew Herrmann is one of Texas’s most highly regarded plaintiff-side wage and hour attorneys, with a practice at Herrmann Law Group that has represented thousands of Texas workers in FLSA collective actions and individual wage theft cases against employers across every sector of Texas’s diverse economy. Herrmann has been recognized by Super Lawyers Texas in employment law and has built a practice that is specifically dedicated to holding Texas employers accountable for systematic wage theft — the denial of overtime pay, off-the-clock work requirements, and other unlawful pay practices that affect large numbers of workers in Austin’s booming service, technology, and construction industries.
His exclusive focus on wage and hour law reflects a depth of specialization that provides Austin workers with expertise that general employment practitioners cannot match. His mastery of both the federal FLSA and the Texas Payday Law — which provides additional state-level wage payment protections for Texas workers — gives his clients access to the full range of available legal remedies for wage theft under both federal and state law.
His experience in the Western District of Texas — where Austin federal employment cases are filed — and his track record of achieving significant collective action results against Austin employers reflect the quality and effectiveness of his wage and hour litigation practice. For Austin workers in the technology, healthcare, construction, and service industries who have been denied proper overtime pay or subjected to other systematic wage violations, Herrmann represents one of the most experienced and effective available advocates.
3. Laurie Gallardo — Gallardo Law Office
- Address: 8492 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33144, United States
- Phone: +13052617000
Laurie Gallardo is an Austin employment attorney whose practice focuses on representing employees in discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination cases throughout Central Texas. Gallardo has built a practice rooted in genuine personal commitment to worker justice and genuine accessibility to Austin workers across income levels — providing experienced employment law representation to working people who need skilled advocacy but may lack the resources to access high-cost legal representation.
Gallardo’s practice encompasses the full range of federal and Texas state employment law claims — Title VII, the ADEA, the ADAAA, the FMLA, the FLSA, and Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 — giving her clients comprehensive coverage of all available employment law protections. Her experience before the TWC Civil Rights Division and in the Western District of Texas reflects the procedural knowledge that effective Austin employment representation requires.
Her practice’s particular focus on Latino and Hispanic workers — reflecting Austin’s significant and growing Hispanic workforce and the specific discrimination issues that arise in a city with significant income inequality across racial and ethnic lines — demonstrates both legal expertise and cultural competence that distinguishes her practice from attorneys without specific experience serving Austin’s diverse communities.
4. Steve Kardell — Kardell Law Group
- Address: 4514 Cole Ave # 600, Dallas, TX 75205, United States
- Phone: +12143068045
Steve Kardell is a Dallas and Austin employment attorney at Kardell Law Group whose practice focuses on representing employees and whistleblowers in retaliation cases, Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower claims, Dodd-Frank whistleblower cases, and SEC whistleblower matters throughout Texas. Kardell has built one of Texas’s most specialized and sophisticated whistleblower protection practices — an area of employment law of particular importance in Austin given the concentration of publicly traded technology and financial services companies in the Austin metro area whose employees frequently witness corporate fraud and securities violations that generate federal whistleblower protection claims.
Kardell has been recognized by Super Lawyers Texas in employment law and has developed national recognition as one of the leading whistleblower protection attorneys in the country — a reputation that reflects the depth and impact of his work in an area of law where genuine specialization produces dramatically better outcomes than general employment law representation. His mastery of the SEC whistleblower program’s claim procedures, the Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation protections available to corporate fraud reporters, and the Dodd-Frank financial reform whistleblower provisions gives Austin technology and finance workers access to comprehensive whistleblower protection across the full range of applicable federal statutes.
5. Austin Kaplan — Kaplan Law Firm
- Address: 2901 Bee Caves Rd, Rollingwood, TX 78746, United States
- Phone: +15128148522
Austin Kaplan is an Austin employment attorney at Kaplan Law Firm whose practice focuses on representing employees and executives in discrimination, wrongful termination, non-compete disputes, and employment contract matters throughout Central Texas. Kaplan has developed a reputation in the Austin business and technology community for sophisticated employment law counsel that addresses the specific legal issues arising in Austin’s technology-dominated economy — including equity compensation disputes, intellectual property retaliation claims, and the increasingly complex intersection of employment law and technology sector business practices.
His practice’s strength in non-compete and trade secret cases — areas of critical importance in Austin’s technology sector where employee mobility between competing employers generates frequent disputes over competitive restrictions and intellectual property ownership — provides both technology companies and their employees with experienced counsel in one of the most commercially significant areas of Texas employment law. His recognition from Super Lawyers Texas in employment law reflects the quality of his work across the full range of employment law matters his Austin clients present.
His firm’s focus on the Austin technology community — combined with genuine accessibility to individual workers who need employment law representation regardless of the size of their claim — reflects a practice philosophy that serves the full spectrum of Austin’s extraordinarily diverse employment law needs.
