A flat weekly rate, sixty-hour weeks, and a cook who assumed that was simply how kitchens worked.
Illustrative example with invented names and details. Past results do not predict future outcomes.
A line cook at a busy restaurant was paid a flat weekly rate that ignored the overtime he actually worked. We rebuilt his hours from posted schedules and text messages, calculated what wage law required, and presented the numbers to the owner’s counsel. The matter settled in mediation for the unpaid wages and part of his fees, and the kitchen’s pay practices changed.
The client came to us through a referral from another professional and wanted, above everything else, a clear picture of cost and timing before deciding anything.
The four stages below are the same ones every matter follows, filled in with what happened on this file.
Our client had photos of posted schedules and two years of text messages about shifts. We turned them into a week-by-week log.
We calculated the overtime the wage rules required and set it next to what the flat rate had actually paid.
A short, documented letter went to the owner’s lawyer with the log and the math, and an invitation to mediate.
One mediation day produced a settlement for the unpaid wages and part of the fees, plus a written change to kitchen pay.
Every matter is different. These figures describe this composite example only and say nothing about what any other matter will take.
Two more composite examples from across the firm.
Two co-owners of a small bakery wanted to split after eight years, and their only agreement was a handshake plus a shared bank account. We valued the business with an outside accountant, drafted a buyout paid over two years, and wrote a noncompete narrow enough for both sides to accept. One partner kept the recipes, the other kept the storefront, and nobody filed suit.
Read the matter
A retired teacher bought a hillside lot and learned a year later that her neighbor’s fence sat eleven feet inside her line. We ordered a fresh survey, read forty years of deeds, and found an easement that had been recorded against the wrong parcel. Rather than sue, both owners signed a boundary line agreement and split the cost of moving the fence.
Read the matter
Illustrative examples, past results do not predict future outcomes.
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