Nicholas J. Ferraro

Nicholas J. Ferraro, Esq. is a labor and employment lawyer and the founder of Ferraro Vega Employment Lawyers. He is licensed to practice law in all courts in the State of California and the State of Washington. In 2022, Mr. Ferraro was named among the “Top 100 Leaders in Law” by the San Diego Business Journal. For the past five years, Mr. Ferraro has been named a Rising Star by Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers, an honor awarded to less than 2.5 percent of lawyers under the age of 40. For the past two years, Mr. Ferraro has been selected as among The Best Lawyers in America: “Ones to Watch” by U.S. News for California class action attorneys.

Background & Education

Mr. Ferraro was born and raised in Trail, British Columbia. He grew up skiing and playing hockey in the winter and playing baseball and going to the lake with family and friends in the summer. Mr. Ferraro attended Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington on a scholarship and graduated cum laude. He previously served as Treasurer and Secretary of the Gonzaga Alumni Association in San Diego.

Mr. Ferraro attended the University of San Diego School of Law, where he was a member of the San Diego Law Review, an editor of California Business Practice, and a judicial extern for a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. During law school, he also worked as a clerk in the law school library, as a research assistant for a renowned labor and employment law professor, as a law clerk at an employment and business litigation firm, and as a legal intern under the general counsel for a San Diego real estate company.

Through a series of summer jobs in high school and college, including working in his family’s cement business, Mr. Ferraro is a former member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Steelworkers.

Litigation Experience

Mr. Ferraro started his firm with the belief that employees deserve the best possible legal representation when they find themselves in the unfortunate position of trying to collect wages they earned or recovering damages for a wrongful termination. Before staring the firm, Mr. Ferraro was a defense lawyer in the labor and employment departments for the national law firms of Duane Morris and Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani. In this capacity, he represented Fortune 500 corporations and other companies in a wide range of complex labor and employment, business litigation, and class action matters.

Publication and Presentations

Mr. Ferraro regularly writes and speaks on employment law issues. Recently, he developed and led a training session for government labor enforcement attorneys at the California DIR and LWDA. He is also occasionally asked to guest lecture on wage and hour issues at USD’s Employment Law class. His speaking engagements also include those with the San Diego County Bar Association (2019 and 2021 Labor & Employment Law Conferences), San Diego State University, San Diego HR Forum, Monitor Liability Managers, MyHRHelp Webinar Series, BB&T Breakfast Briefings, DM’s Developments in Employment Law annual series, G&R’s Employment Webinars, sexual harassment and investigation training sessions, among others. Mr. Ferraro’s employment law articles have been published in California Employment Law Letter, HR Daily Advisor, Lexology, Mondaq, and in client alerts and newsletters for his prior law firms.