Christina Kataoka

Christina Kataoka maintains a broad employment and labor practice, covering litigation and counseling issues. She represents clients in cases involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, wage and hour violations and contractual disputes before arbitral panels and state and federal courts. As a litigator and California and Massachusetts trained mediator, Christina has experience and enjoys handling all phases of litigation, including case assessment, discovery, depositions, dispositive motion practice, settlement negotiations, trial preparation and appeals. She partners with clients to evaluate potential exposure, address complex employment issues, and pursue effective resolutions.

Before entering private practice, Christina served as executive director of the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center (APADRC) and a practicing mediator. In this role, she facilitated more than 600 mediations and helped parties resolve complex business, employment, intellectual property and other disputes among high-conflict parties. In addition to her mediation practice, she led the organization's operations, compliance, fundraising and governance functions, including strategic policy and bylaw reforms. Under her leadership, APADRC expanded its services nationwide, garnering continued recognition for its innovational contributions to conflict resolution, community engagement and public service since 1989, including earning honors from the California State Assembly, the County of Los Angeles and other prominent civic organizations. Building on her hands-on mediation experience and restorative justice training, Christina further strengthened the organization as a trusted community resource by taking a personal role in designing and conducting training and professional development programs that equipped legal professionals, public agencies, educators and community leaders with the tools to prevent, manage and resolve conflict effectively, and exemplifying conflict as an opportunity for growth.