Porta, Marie A.

Cornelia Dai is a partner at Hadsell Stormer Richardson & Renick, LLP, a private plaintiff-side law firm located in the Greater Los Angeles area.  Ms. Dai's practice specializes in individual employment cases, wage and hour class actions, and other civil rights cases.  She has practiced in both state and federal court, and has represented clients at all stages of litigation. 

Ms. Dai has fought for employees, workers, and the underrepresented her entire career.  She has successfully litigated cases involving a wide range of issues, including workplace harassment and discrimination, whistleblowing, wrongful termination, unpaid compensation, improper work conditions, and free speech infringement.  In 2008, she and her co-counsel obtained a judgment of more than $5.1 million in a class action involving violations of overtime and meal and rest break laws in Wang v. Chinese Daily News.  She is currently co-counsel in actions brought against various hotels in the Los Angeles International Airport area for failure to pass service charges on to workers in violation of a city ordinance.  Ms. Dai was also one of the plaintiffs' counsel in South Central Farmers Feeding Families v. City of Los Angeles, a case brought on behalf of over 300 low-income families in a struggle to preserve land for a much-needed urban community garden in South Los Angeles. In addition, she was one of the Doe plaintiffs' counsel in the state litigation of the international human rights case Doe v. Unocal, which involved human rights abuses by a large oil company against Burmese villagers.

Ms. Dai was listed in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America (Employment Law – Individuals).  In 2011, she was selected as one of the Top 75 Labor & Employment Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal.  Ms. Dai has been named to the Southern California Super Lawyers® – Rising Stars list each year since 2005.  She was featured in the July 2007 issue of Southern California Super Lawyers® - Rising Stars, in an article entitled “For Abusive Employers, The Dai Has Been Cast.”  In 2010 and 2011, she was also named one of the Top Attorneys for Labor & Employment by Pasadena Magazine.

Ms. Dai currently sits on the Executive Committee of the Labor and Employment Law section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. She is also a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association and the National Lawyers Guild.

Ms. Dai is a 1995 graduate of U.C. Berkeley, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. She earned her Juris Doctorate at U.S.C. Law School in 1999.