Guido Toscano
Guido Toscano was born in Ecuador and raised in Los Angeles and Bakersfield. He studied law at the University of Southern California (USC), one the nation’s leading law schools. As a teen, he was inspired by the movie Amadeus to buy a Mozart concerto score and learn classical piano with the hope of one day playing it. Within a few years he was admitted to study piano performance at Texas Christian University (TCU), then-home of the prestigious Van Cliburn Institute.While at TCU, he met his wife Amy (an accomplished concert pianist from Taiwan, now a brilliant acupuncturist!) and, for his graduation concert, they played a Mozart piano concerto together. In 2006 they moved cross-country to make a life for themselves in Los Angeles.
Mr. Toscano’s first work out of law school was for a prominent defense firm, while there he helped defense teams in environmental and consumer class actions, FDA compliance and white-collar pharmaceutical cases, including a high-profile regulatory investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Mr. Toscano next worked for Venable LLP, where he continued his class action work and expanded his practice to represent high net-worth clients in entertainment and trust & estate litigation. While at Venable he had his first taste of trial work, culminating in a first- chair bench trial victory in California state court.
Following a period of international travel and pilgrimage, Mr. Toscano left corporate defense and re-started his career with the desire to represent the people of California. He began plaintiff-side by working for mentor and friend Jeff Westerman at his solo practice in Encino. Mr. Toscano next worked at Richards, Watson & Gershon, a firm that served as the City Attorneys’ Offices for the cities of Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach, and Temecula, among others. While there, he began to develop a trial practice and achieved success in arbitration, administrative forums, and both civil and criminal cases.
Mr. Toscano now devotes his practice to representing employees in class action/PAGA and employment cases involving wage theft, retaliation, wrongful termination and wrongful conduct of employers. He is honored to represent the working people of California and, in that capacity, has helped recover millions of dollars on behalf of employees across the state.