About Jason Marsili

After 17 years as an advocate in the practice of labor and employment law, Jason Marsili launched Marsili Mediation to help others resolve disputes.  Realizing the motivations that first prompted the study of law, Jason applies the same pragmatism and substantive knowledge which guided his career as a lawyer to his passion for resolving disputes as a mediator.

Jason has been resolving disputes since before he knew about the process of mediation.  In high school, after a racially-motivated brawl erupted involving over 100 students, Jason helped alleviate lasting racial tensions by facilitating discussions among the students to promote tolerance and understanding.  He became Chair of the school’s Racial and Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee, and given his persistence and dedication to resolving deep-rooted racial conflict, Jason was named co-Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers.

After high school, Jason enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in Economics and Social Thought & Analysis with a minor in Business Administration.  Through his coursework at Washington University, which included classes in logic, linguistics, argumentation, and negotiation, Jason gravitated toward the study of law with a focus on alternative dispute resolution.

Jason attended Pepperdine University School of Law, obtaining both his Juris Doctor and a Masters in Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution.  During law school, Jason served as Editor-in-Chief of the Pepperdine Law Review and competed as a member of the trial team, but it was a personal experience that shaped Jason’s legal interests.  When his father lost his job of 29 years, Jason decided to pursue the practice of labor and employment before embarking on a career as an ADR professional.

Prior to becoming a full-time meditator, Jason practiced labor and employment law exclusively for 17 years.  His practice focused on class and collective wage and hour litigation on behalf of both unrepresented and unionized employees involving violations of the FLSA and state law.  He is one of few attorneys in California to have tried a wage and hour class action to jury verdict and to have arbitrated a class action through appellate review before the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

In addition to wage and hour litigation, Jason handled individual matters concerning medical leaves, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, executive compensation, as well as labor-management relations issues and grievance proceedings.  Over the course of his career as a litigant, Jason developed a reputation for being a pragmatic advocate, consistently seeking creative ways and opportunities to resolve litigation.

Jason remains an active member of both the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Labor & Employment Law and the Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA) Labor & Employment Law Section.  He is a former Co-Chair of the ABA Federal Labor Standards Legislation Committee and currently serves as a member of the governing Council of the Section of Labor and Employment Law.  He also serves as Chair of the LACBA Labor & Employment Law Section.  Jason is a frequent speaker and writer on issues relating to current labor and employment law issues.  He serves on the editorial board for The Fair Labor Standards Act treatise (4th ed.), and a chapter editor for Age Discrimination in Employment Law (3d ed.).

In 2015, Jason joined the faculty at USC Gould School of Law as an Adjunct Professor, teaching courses in negotiation theory and mediation advocacy.  Today, he applies his substantive knowledge, procedural training, and practical attitude to assist others in mediation.

Jason maintains an extensive working knowledge of both employment litigation and traditional labor law.  Utilizing the pragmatic considerations he established as a litigant to resolving disputes, he brings his subject matter expertise to resolving disputes in the following areas:

• Class/Collective Actions and Hybrid Litigation 
• Collective Bargaining
• Consumer Actions
• Disabilities and Reasonable Accommodations
• Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation
• Executive Compensation
• Grievance Proceedings
• Mass Arbitrations and PAGA Litigation
• Medical Leaves
• Sexual Harassment
• Wage and Hour
• Whistleblower Retaliation
• Wrongful Termination

Additionally, Jason has experience resolving business disputes, contract claims, and consumer class actions.

For every case, there are reasons why resolution has not occurred.  Be it overconfidence, unrealistic expectations, valuation differences, posturing, pride, emotions, or acrimonious interactions between counsel and/or the parties, Jason identifies these barriers to settlement and fosters a path for the parties to overcome them and reach resolution.  He believes in maintaining a transparent process, explaining how settlement movements from either side may help (or hinder) ultimate resolution of a case, while encouraging parties to refrain from utilizing protractive tactics better served for litigation.