Barbara L. Johnson, Esq.
Partner
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker LLP

Barbara L. Johnson is a partner in the Employment Law Department at Paul Hastings. Ms. Johnson is a nationally known employment jury trial and class action lawyer representing employers. She regularly tries cases in various state and federal courts, raising issues of alleged race, age, gender, and disability discrimination, wage and hour violations retaliation, breach of contract, and various employment torts. Ms. Johnson has tried more than 25 employment law cases. She provides employment law advice, and handles administrative matters before state and federal agencies and conducts investigations into all types of workplace matters. In addition to her employment law trials, Ms. Johnson has litigated ERISA, Sarbanes-Oxley, premises liability, toxic tort, environmental racism, and business tort cases.

She is admitted to practice in Michigan, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Before joining Paul Hastings in 2002, she was a shareholder at a firm in Houston, Texas for a number of years. Prior to that association, she served as in-house counsel for The Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan and Freeport, Texas. She began her professional career as an analytical chemist and instrument engineer for Dow in Midland, Michigan, before taking a leave of absence to attend the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and Mary, where she received her law degree in 1984. She received her B.S. degree from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.

Ms. Johnson is a frequent speaker at seminars sponsored by the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA, the National Employment Law Institute, National Employment Law Council and the American Employment Law Council. The broad scope of her practice and knowledge is reflected in the following list of some of her recent speeches and papers: "Developing Trends in Employment Law" (American Bar Association Labor and Employment EEO Committee National CLE); "Direct Examination—How to Get Them to Say What You Want" (American Bar Association Annual Meeting); "Conducting Effective Investigations Into Workplace Misconduct" (National Employment Law Institute; "Arbitrating Employment Disputes" (ALI-ABA); and "Current Developments in Gender and Race Harassment" (ALI-ABA).

Ms. Johnson is also on the faculty of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and has published a chapter regarding workplace drug testing in the organization’s treatise.