Chelsea Dwyer Petersen Partner

Chelsea Dwyer Petersen focuses her practice on employment litigation with an emphasis on complex class action litigation, pay equity audits and high-level workplace investigations.

Known for achieving efficient resolutions in a timely manner, Chelsea leads proactive defenses of discrimination and wage-and-hour class action and collective action cases for clients, such as Comcast, The Boeing Company, Amazon and OfficeMax. She has substantial experience in all phases of class cases, including early strategic assessment, defeat of class certification, supervision of large-scale electronic document review, oversight of expert witnesses and taking a case to trial. She serves as Firmwide Chair of the Class Action Defense practice. 

Chelsea defends employers against individual discrimination, harassment, retaliation and wage-and-hour claims raised to state and federal enforcement agencies and filed in state and federal court. She also assists clients with critical pay equity audits and strategic advice related to audit results.

In her workplace investigations practice, Chelsea focuses on confidential internal investigations involving allegations of sexual harassment or assault, typically directed at corporate leadership and C-suite executives. She serves as neutral investigator while advising on critical litigation defense and media strategies. Chelsea counsels corporate boards, legal departments and human resources professionals through the investigation process, from initial allegation through final conclusion.     

As a trainer and counselor, Chelsea also works closely with clients to minimize the possibility of litigation by providing training as well as practical advice regarding every-day human resources issues and creating employment handbooks and policies to keep business moving smoothly. In particular, she counsels employers on how to comply with federal and state statutes, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Washington Law Against Discrimination and the Washington Minimum Wage Act.