Cristina Armstrong

Cristina K. Armstrong’s practice focuses on management-side employment counseling and litigation. She advises clients on a wide range of issues, including wage and hour law, discrimination and harassment policies and prevention, employee corrective action and termination, reasonable accommodations for disabilities and religion, leaves of absence, personnel policies, review of employee handbooks and health and safety matters.

Cristina defends employers of all sizes in litigation, with a focus on class action litigation. Cristina represents clients in state and federal court, and also in various administrative agency proceedings, including matters before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

She also represents retailers in consumer privacy class actions, with an emphasis on disputes under the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act.

Cristina also has significant experience in appellate litigation. Recently, Cristina successfully argued before the California Court of Appeal, Second District, in Concepcion v. Amscan Holdings, Inc., a case securing the defendant’s right to see the plaintiff’s attorneys’ billing records in fee dispute.

She was a part of the appellate team in the pivotal wage and hour class action Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, where the California Supreme Court held that class action waivers in employment arbitration agreements are enforceable.

Cristina has been a member of the appellate team in a number of other cases, including Party City Corp. v. Superior Court, and Wilson v. Murillo, and she has represented amicus parties before the California Supreme Court.

Cristina worked in the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Department of Homeland Security handling claims of discrimination and harassment.

During law school, Cristina was an employment litigation law clerk in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Transportation Security Administration. She was a Dean’s Fellow at the George Washington University School of Law and a National Hispanic Merit Scholar at the University of Florida.

Cristina is on the Education Fund Executive Board for Alamo Elementary School in Alamo, California. She also volunteers her time with the Odyssey of the Mind program in the San Francisco Bay Region, an organization with which she has been involved for more than 15 years.

EDUCATION :

• George Washington University Law School (J.D., 2005)
• University of Florida (B.S., cum laude, 2002)

MEMBERSHIPS :

• Contra Costa County Bar Association
• State Bar of California, Labor and Employment Section
• The Florida Bar, Out-of-State Practitioners Division
• University of Florida Alumni Association

COURT ADMISSIONS :

• U.S. District Court, Central District of California
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California