Bio

Mr. Fox was the California Employment Law Expert Witness offering testimony on behalf of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company in the shareholder derivative lawsuit challenging Disney's estimated $140 million severance package paid to its former President Michael Ovitz. The Court credited Mr. Fox's testimony in a surprise ruling in favor of Disney.

Mr. Fox also successfully represented American Airlines in 997 separate lawsuits arising nationwide challenging American's rejection of Applicants for employment based on over 70 different physical and mental impairments. After causing two courts to dismiss these lawsuits in their entirety, the Congress subsequently amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (the predecessor federal disability law to the ADA) to cure the deficiencies in the statute Mr. Fox had brought to attention of the federal Courts.

Mr. Fox also successfully represented Zilog, Inc., one of Silicon Valley's most venerable semi-conductor companies. After first defeating class certification, Mr. Fox defended the remaining 31 separate lawsuits of the named parties collectively seeking $3 Billion for alleged failure to accommodate violations the Plaintiffs brought pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Clerk of the Court described this case as the largest civil action in the history of the federal civil courts in Idaho. The case settled on the eve of the trial of the first six of the 31 lawsuits for a confidential amount less than Plaintiff's attorneys' fees for their 22 lawyers.

Prior to founding The Law Office of John C. Fox, P.C., Mr. Fox was a founding partner at Fox, Wang & Morgan, Mr. Fox was a Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and at Fenwick & West, LLP and chaired their Employment and Labor Groups for two decades specializing in employment law applicable to high technology companies. Mr. Fox was also previously Executive Assistant (now re-titled "Deputy Director") to the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), U.S. Department of Labor, where he was responsible for all enforcement and policy matters. Apart from drafting substantive employment discrimination regulations at OFCCP, Mr. Fox was responsible for OFCCP's contacts with Congress, other federal agencies, and The White House.

Mr. Fox donates his time, pro bono, to a battered women's shelter, Monarch Services, headquartered in Watsonville, CA. As he has for over two decades.

Mr. Fox also lectures often and has published widely on a variety of employment law subjects. He co-authored the first books in the country on both OSHA Law (2 volumes) and Affirmative Action Programs (38 editions) and authored a 2 volume treatise on the Labor Laws of Canada, Mexico and Western Europe for U.S. labor law practitioners.

He was a member of the Advisory Committee to the National Employment Law Institute and was a member of its Board of Directors for over two decades. He is a past Chair of the Santa Clara County Bar Association Employment Law Committee. He has also served as a member of the Boards of Directors of both The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California and The York School in Monterey, California. Mr. Fox was also the "Navigator" for 2009-2010 for the Sierra Expedition of the Southwest YMCA Adventure Princesses Program.

Mr. Fox innovated and wrote the OFCCP "Week in Review" Blog about developments among the federal employment law agencies from 2015 - 2024. Mr. Fox was the Number 1 author in J.D. Supra's Government Contracts section (includes discrimination law agencies) for the four years 2021 to 2024 from among 19,000 other authors.

• George Washington University Law School, J.D., 1976
• While in law school, The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press employed Mr. Fox as its Editor-in-Chief of the Press Censorship Newsletter, predecessor to BNA's Media Law Reporter.
• University of California, Riverside, B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude, 1973 where he was also the News Editor of the campus newspaper The Highlander.

• Admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia as well as numerous federal district courts and courts of appeals across the nation and the SCOTUS.

• AV Preeminent (Martindale-Hubbell's highest rating) since the advent of the "Preeminent" rating, M-H's highest rating
• Expert Guides: Guide to the World's Leading Labour and Employment Attorneys, 2013-present
• Northern California Super Lawyers, 2004-present
• Top Attorneys in Northern California, 2010-present
• Dean L. Broadbent Award for outstanding contribution to the community and for academic excellence, University of California, Riverside, 1973

• Deborah K. Biggers, et al. v. Heller Ehrman, LLP, et al., United States Bankruptcy Court Northern District of California (2008-2010) (we were employment (and then employment bankruptcy) counsel to the world's 30th largest law firm which shut down after 119 years of business)
• Sleep Train Coordinated Wage and Hour Cases, San Francisco County Superior Court, Complex Division (2007-2020) (broad-based wage-hour exemption and meal and rest period series of inter-related class-action lawsuits)
• Joohak Kim v. Saehan Bank, American Arbitration Association, Los Angeles County (2007) (Bank CEO pension fraud employment case)
• In re The Walt Disney Co. Derivative Litigation, New Castle County, Delaware Court of Chancery (2005) (the case many pundits across the nation described as the most significant case in the nation in 2005)
• Corium Int'l., Inc. v. Shoreh Parandoosh, San Mateo County Superior Court (2003) (termination of recalcitrant inventor and patent holder)
• Susan W. Constantinides v. Symantec Corp., U.S. District Court, E.D. Virginia, Norfolk Division (2002) (ERISA alleged fiduciary duty and benefits denial case brought by widow of deceased manager successfully defended at trial)
• Michael D. Norton v. Andros Inc., et al., San Francisco County Superior Court (2002) (CEO termination, fraud, company valuation and stock option valuation case)
• Mark Hardie v. California Independent System Operator, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Complex Division (1999) (the first Wage-Hour class action tried in California)
• Tsotung Ko, et al. v. Zilog, Inc., U.S. District Court, Idaho (1994) (31 separate but consolidated ADA lawsuits reportedly the largest civil case ever tried in Idaho)
• OFCCP v. Enterprise Rent-a-Car, a successful defense of a class-action failure-to-hire professional employees case which established, nationwide, OFCCP's legal standards to prosecute class-type disparate treatment and adverse impact claims
• OFCCP v. Cargill, Inc., consolidated class actions in Arkansas settled on the eve of trial for less than Defendant's first settlement offer (2015)
• OFCCP v. JBS, Inc., class action failure to hire case in Utah settled after 10 weeks of trial at the close of Plaintiffs' case for less than 1% of Plaintiff's claimed damages (2020)
• OFCCP v. ABM, Inc., in a decision of first impression, the federal District Court in Houston enjoined OFCCP nationwide from prosecuting ABM through the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges finding that its formation violated Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution