Employment Litigation

Leiza is Board Certified in Labor and Employment law in Texas and represents clients in the full spectrum of employment disputes, from negotiating employment agreement, to obtaining larger severance payments, to suing employers for wrongful termination or retaliation.

The disputes that Leiza handles include:

• Wrongful Termination
• Wrongful Retaliation
• Unpaid Commissions
• Injury or Disability Discrimination
• Fired for Refusing to Do an Illegal Act
• FMLA (Family/Medical Leave)
• Non-Compete Agreements Negotiations and Litigation
• Severance Agreements / Separation Agreements
• Employment Contract Review and Negotiation
• Overtime Violations – Unpaid Overtime / Misclassification
• Tip Pool Violations
• Unpaid Minimum Wage
• Unpaid Tips
• Unpaid Internships and Volunteer Positions
• Pregnancy Discrimination
• Sexual Harassment
• Trade Secret Misappropriation
• Discrimination or Retaliation on the Basis of:
  1. Race
  2. Color
  3. Gender
  4. Sexual Orientation
  5. Gender Identity
  6. Transgender Status
  7. Religion
  8. National Origin or Ancestry
  9. Age
  10. Pregnancy Status
  11. Veteran Status
  12. Disability

Leiza regularly helps clients negotiate better employment agreements, larger severance payments, and obtain settlements from employers who had discriminated or retaliated against employees or failed to pay them commissions or bonuses.

Business Litigation

Leiza represents businesses and business owners in a wide spectrum of business disputes, including:

• Shareholder disputes
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Business torts
• Breach of contract
• Collection of unpaid fees
• Texas deceptive practice claims
• Fraud
• Any other permutation of disputes between two businesses.

Examples of such disputes include:

• A party entering into a business deal or a contract in reliance on the other party’s statements that later turned out not to be true (fraud);
• A shareholder or a member of a business entity not being paid distributions or being denied other rights by the majority member (breach of fiduciary duty);
• One company tortiously interfering with another company’s business opportunities (tortious interference with potential business opportunities);
• One company causing another company to lose customers through tortious acts (tortious interference with contracts);
• Companies failing to deliver according to the terms of the contract (breach of contract).

Leiza helps clients assess their legal rights and claims arising out of disputes that routinely arise in the process of operating a business. She assist with negotiating a resolution, and when necessary, pursues litigation in courts around Texas.

Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Litigation

Since 2012, Leiza has been representing clients all over Texas in non-compete and non-solicitation lawsuits. She routinely obtains temporary restraining orders and temporary injunctions as well as fights those on behalf of employees. She has represented clients in healthcare, staffing, graphic design, software, accounting, home improvement, construction, and many other industries, and often reviews non-compete agreements and advises employers and employees regarding their rights with respect to non-compete agreements before there is any litigation. She has extensive experience in representing physicians, nurse practitioners, and dentists in non-compete disputes, who are often facing a fight with private equity entities who had acquired their practices. Leiza frequently publishes articles on non-compete and non-solicit issues on her blog, NorthTexasLegalNews.com, and has been interviewed by FORBES regarding the proposed ban on non-compete agreements. She frequently presents on non-compete litigation at Texas Bar Association, Dallas Bar Association, and at other professional events.

Some specific examples of her work in this are include:

• Dissolved a non-compete temporary restraining order against a private aircraft management and charter company that was obtained in violation of the rules.
• Successfully defended multiple employees who left a staffing agency to start a competing business.
• Successfully defended multiple physicians accused of breaching non-compete agreements by their former employers, including private equity funds, and hospitals.
• Successfully defended an enterprise resource planning company accused of trade secrets misappropriation and non-compete violations in several related state courts lawsuits, a federal lawsuit, and a related arbitration proceeding.
• Obtained a temporary restraining order against a former employee of a staffing agency who was violating her non-compete restraints, leading to an agreed injunction.
• Obtained injunctive relief against a former employee of a software company requiring her to return the company’s data and pay the company’s attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the enforcement action.
• Obtained a temporary restraining order against a former employee of graphic design company who was violating the agreement, leading to an agreed injunction.
• Facilitated return of employer’s confidential information taken by a departing employee and obtained a temporary injunction against the employee prohibiting the use of such confidential information at the new place of employment.
• Obtained a temporary injunction on behalf of an employer enforcing a non-compete clause against two departed employees who opened a competing construction business.
• Obtained a temporary injunction on behalf of former business owners in the construction industry prohibiting enforcement of their non-compete agreement.
• Obtained a court ruling reducing an employee’s non-compete restraint from 5 years to 2 years.
• Advised multiple business owners regarding their rights and obligations under non-competition agreements related to the sale of their business.
• Advised hundreds of employees regarding their rights and obligations under their non-competition agreements.
• Negotiated modifications to and releases of various non-competition agreements for employees.

Trade Secrets Litigation

Every successful business has trade secrets, such as clients lists, tried-and-true processes developed over time, technical information, or other “secret sauce.” Leiza represents clients in disputes involving theft of trade secrets by former employees, business partners or competitors. Leiza has represented clients in trade secret lawsuits involving software code, client lists, engineering designs, and a variety of other confidential and proprietary information that business often accumulate while conducting business. She has both obtained and defeated temporary restraining orders and injunctions in trade secrets lawsuits involving the following claims:

• Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act
• Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act
• Unfair Competition Law
• Misuse of Intellectual Property
• Trade Secret Misappropriation
• Trade Secret Theft
• Confidentiality Violations
• Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets
• And other related claims.

Revenge Porn Litigation

In Texas, unlawful disclosure of intimate visual images (nude photos and videos) or even a threat of such disclosure are punishable criminally and civilly. A victim of such disclosure may sue the person who disclosed the intimate images and obtain damages in court, without publicly disclosing the victim’s name. Leiza helps victims of revenge porn obtain justice in civil courts around Texas.

Examples of unlawful disclosure include:

• Posting a sex video or images with a partner, without that partner’s permission, on a sex website;
• Sharing intimate videos or photos of someone with others, via social media or text messages, without the victim’s permission;
• Creating and sharing a deep fake pornographic photographs or vides of the victim.

In addition to damages, Texas laws also allows victims of unlawful disclosure of their intimate images to seek a court order that prohibits the person who has distributed the images from continuing such distribution.

Thus, victims may obtain court orders that:

• Require the person who posted the intimate images to take them down;
• Require the person who has been sharing intimate images with others to stop such sharing.

A person who violates such an order may be held in contempt of court and be ordered to pay a fine into the court’s registry and / or put in jail to force them to comply with the order.

Disclosure of Intimate Images – Civil Remedies

Chapter 98B of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provide the following cause of action that a person can bring in a civil lawsuit:

(a) A defendant is liable, as provided by this chapter, to a person depicted in intimate visual material for damages arising from the disclosure of the material if:

• The defendant discloses the intimate visual material without the effective consent of the depicted person;
• The intimate visual material was obtained by the defendant or created under circumstances in which the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that the material would remain private;
• The disclosure of the intimate visual material causes harm to the depicted person; and
• The disclosure of the intimate visual material reveals the identity of the depicted person in any manner, including through: (A) Any accompanying or subsequent information or material related to the intimate visual material; or (B) Information or material provided by a third party in response to the disclosure the intimate visual material.

(b) A defendant is liable, as provided by this chapter, to a person depicted in intimate visual material for damages arising from the promotion of the material if, knowing the character and content of the material, the defendant promotes intimate visual material described by Subsection (a) on an Internet website or other forum for publication that is owned or operated by the defendant. A plaintiff who successfully proves distribution of intimate visual material will be awarded actual damages, including damages for mental anguish, court costs, and reasonable attorneys fees.

Deep Fake Sexually Explicit Videos – Remedies

In addition to prohibition on unlawful distributions of intimate images, Texas is one the few states that also prohibits creation of deep fake sexual videos and photos of individuals without their consent.
Thus, a victim of a sexual deep fake video may seek the damages and remedies described against a person who created or distributed the deep fake video in violation of the Texas Penal Code § 21.165, which states: “(b) A person commits an offense if, without the effective consent of the person appearing to be depicted, the person knowingly produces or distributes by electronic means a deep fake video that appears to depict the person with the person’s intimate parts exposed or engaged in sexual conduct.”
Leiza has helped several clients obtain relief against unlawful dissemination of their intimate images in legal proceedings during which the victims’ names were kept confidential.