From her early years in New York to the present time, Deborah has always had deep admiration for law enforcement officers. When you need help, who do you call? Answer: You call the local police or sheriff’s department to dispatch officers to assist you. These brave men and women face danger every day and are always there to come to your aid.
Deborah had the pleasure of serving as Counsel to law enforcement officers, mostly police officers and deputy sheriffs, and their Associations, when she practiced in California, mainly in the Los Angeles Metro Area. She represented these officers in internal affairs and criminal investigations, responded to officer-involved shootings and other critical incidents, provided representation during pre-disciplinary meetings with Department officials, and advocated for officers in disciplinary actions before labor arbitrators, trial boards, and civil service commissions. She also brought state court actions to set aside Department decisions on discipline, to compel arbitration and to enforce arbitration awards.
All California “peace officers” are covered by the CA Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act, commonly called “POBR”, which grants most law enforcement officers a full panoply of due process rights that must be afforded them in the disciplinary/discharge process including written notice of the alleged misconduct by the officer, the rules/laws allegedly violated and the proposed discipline, the right to be represented by Counsel, the opportunity for a full and fair hearing before a neutral 3rd party to present their case and present evidence, call witnesses and cross-examine opposing witnesses, and the right to appeal the Department’s final decision to a trial court.
Many states have adopted similar safeguards to POBR in legislation referred to as the “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR)”. Unfortunately, Texas has not done so and only cities and counties in Texas with a large population (cities10,000 or more; counties 190,000 or more), afford municipal police officers and county deputy sheriffs and other sheriffs’ department officers similar due process protections. In North Texas, these cities and counties include Dallas, Irving and Garland/Dallas County, Fort Worth and Arlington/Tarrant County, McKinney, Plano/Collin County and Denton/Denton County These protections are contained in the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 143 (Police Officers) and Chapter 158 (County Officers).
There are many cities and counties in North Texas that have less than 10,000/190,000 residents. I am an optimist and believe that someday, Texas too will adopt the protections set forth in LEOBOR so all law enforcement officers will be protected from arbitrary and capricious decisions about their employment by Department officials.
Although many officers in small departments do not have due process rights, they are covered by the Texas Payday Law and federal labor laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Deborah is available to enforce the rights you do have. She will do the best she can to protect your job. You deserve that and more!
I can represent you in:
· Internal Affairs and Criminal investigations.
· Officer-involved shootings and other critical incidents.
· Pre-disciplinary meetings with Department officials.
· Disciplinary hearings before civil service commissions, trial boards and labor arbitrators.
· Disciplinary actions before the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) for suspension or revocation of your peace officer license.
· Administrative Agency proceedings before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (employment discrimination), Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) (wage claims, overtime violations, denial of on-call Pay), US Department of Labor (FLSA violations and FMLA violations).
