Our Practice

Lauren Monson has over fifteen years experience practicing labor relations and employment counseling for employers in Northern California. Previously, Lauren worked as a deputy city attorney for the City and County of San Francisco and the City of San Rafael.  Her practice focuses on municipalities and public agencies, navigating the unique environment of public employers and a union environment. Lauren has also worked with private employers and non profits.  She specializes in advising on reasonable accommodations, FMLA and other related leave issues, disciplinary matters, labor contract interpretation, and claims of discrimination and harassment. She has also provided guidance to employers on public record requests, document retention policies, and workplace violence policies. In addition, Lauren has experience in conducting workplace investigations related to disciplinary matters and employee complaints of discrimination and harassment.  

Prior to forming Monson Law, Lauren served as Of Counsel at Prescott Law of San Francisco and Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai of Berkeley, providing labor relations and employment counseling for public agencies and non-profits and conducting workplace investigations related to disciplinary matters and employee complaints of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Other tasks included providing guidance to employers on public record requests, document retention policies, and workplace violence policies and developing and conducting trainings on effective internal workplace investigations. Lauren also served as a labor negotiator for the City and County of San Francisco during the 2022 bargaining season.   

From 2017-2019,  Lauren served as a Deputy City Attorney for the City of San Rafael providing advice to city departments on all aspects of municipal law. In this role, she advised the City’s Human Resources department in the areas of labor relations and employment counseling, including workplace misconduct, workplace investigations, and the review and update of labor and employment policies. She also worked with the Police Department to evaluate the impact of new laws related to homelessness and gun violence restraining orders and develop policies to ensure department and city compliance. Lauren collaborated with department heads to draft legislation for review and ratification by the City Council, including the City's recreational cannabis ordinance. She also served as a board member and city representative to the California Joint Powers Risk Management Authority (CJPRMA).

From 2006 to 2014, Lauren served as a Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. Here, she served on the Labor and Employment team for six years, representing the City and County in all aspects of employment litigation in both State and Federal court, handling claims involving hostile work environment, discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, disability discrimination, civil rights, and wage and hour. She also advised city departments and agencies on labor and employment issues, including Equal Employment Opportunity investigations, responses to requests for information from the EEOC and the DFEH, ADA and reasonable accommodations, discipline, document retention, and workplace violence policies and procedures.  Lauren represented the City in labor contract bargaining and negotiation and represented the City and its Departments in grievance and arbitration proceedings.

For two years, Lauren served on the City's Children and Family Services Team, representing the San Francisco Department of Human Services in juvenile court dependency actions and advising individual social workers on dependency matters regarding the legal impact of social work decisions and court recommendations.

Lauren studied law at the University of San Francisco School of Law, graduating in 2005 with a Public Interest Law certificate. She received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Boston College in 2000. Lauren studied abroad in Ecuador and continues to enjoy traveling domestically and internationally when possible. Lauren is admitted to practice law in California, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She is an active member of the Marin County Bar Association and Association of Workplace Investigators. 

Lauren uses she/her pronouns and can be reached at lauren@monson-law.com