Dawn Telthorst Fonseca is an associate in Littler’s San Diego office. She represents employers and management with respect to employment matters including wage and hour class actions and audits, and every type of discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination in violation of public policy claim. While at Littler, she has won a summary judgment motion on all claims in a suit alleging eight causes of action, including gender discrimination and failure to pay commissions; a demurrer to a complaint alleging 12 causes of action, including discrimination and wage and hour violations; and an appeal before the California Unemployment Appeals Board, which overturned the state’s grant of unemployment benefits to a client’s former employee. 

Additionally, she has prepared class actions for trial and helped to negotiate multimillion-dollar settlements on behalf of two separate large national retailers sued for wage and hour violations. She also wrote the National Retail Federation Bi-Annual Update on emerging employment law topics for the Fall 2009, Spring 2010 and Fall 2010 wage and hour committee meetings.

Prior to her work at Littler, Fonseca was at the San Diego office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. As an associate for the firm, she conducted due diligence review for a variety of high-value, corporate transactions, including division spinoffs for a Fortune 50 multinational banking institution and a multimillion-dollar merger between international and domestic call-service companies. She prepared SEC filings, including Forms 14D-9, 6-K and F-4, in connection with a $340 million dollar acquisition of a French public software company, and Form S-1 registration statement for a medical device company in its $230 million initial public offering. She also interviewed witnesses in a statewide wage/hour class action lawsuit filed against Fortune 50 client, and conducted document review for a sexual harassment suit against a large commercial real estate services company. 

Fonseca is the recipient of the Casa Cornelia Law Center’s 2010 Pro Bono Publico Award. The award recognized Fonseca’s outstanding representation of two Somali refugees seeking asylum in the United States, on whose behalf she appeared and prepared asylum applications.

Fonseca received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and her B.A. in Economics and International Studies from Northwestern University. She is admitted to practice in the State of California and the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California.