Bio
Tim Del Castillo represents employees in employment disputes and brings to FairPlay a decade of high-stakes employment litigation experience built on the other side of the table. He is the Founding Partner of Castle Law: California Employment Counsel, PC, and serves as FairPlay’s California employment counsel. He represents clients in federal and state courts, administrative hearings, arbitrations, mediations, and direct negotiations.
Tim began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He then practiced defense-side employment law at two of California’s largest and most respected international firms, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, representing Fortune 500 companies in high-stakes matters, wage-and-hour class actions, PAGA cases, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, misclassification, unpaid-wage claims, California Labor Code violations, and wrongful termination. That defense-side experience now works for the employees he represents: he knows how the other side builds its case, because he built it.
Tim has taken wage-and-hour class action and PAGA cases through trial.
During law school, Tim was Lead Articles Editor of the Pepperdine Law Review, a teaching assistant for legal research and writing, and a judicial extern to then-Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before law school, he earned a master’s degree and worked as a private-school teacher and principal.
Tim is active in the Sacramento legal community, having served on the Executive Committee of the Labor and Employment Section of the Sacramento County Bar Association and on the Board of its Solo and Small Firm Division. He was named to Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyers in Sacramento in 2018 and 2021, recognized by Super Lawyers as a Northern California Rising Star in 2020 and 2021 (an honor limited to no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state), and selected as a Super Lawyer from 2022 through 2024.
Focus
Employment Litigation · Wage & Hour Class & PAGA Actions · Discrimination, Harassment & Retaliation · Wrongful Termination
Education
J.D., Pepperdine University School of Law, magna cum laude (Lead Articles Editor, Pepperdine Law Review)
M.A., {subject / institution — confirm}
B.A., Franciscan University of Steubenville, summa cum laude
Admitted In
California
Select Presentations & Interviews
Putting in Work: Running a High-Level Employment Law Practice — Above the Law, with Jared Correia
Arbitration Agreements and PAGA Claims: Good News for Employers — Workplace Wake-Up with Jen Shaw
Employment Litigation: Perspectives from the “Other Side” — Workplace Wake-Up with Jen Shaw
Calculating Damages, Exposure & PAGA Penalties for Mediation/Settlement in Wage-and-Hour Class and Representative Actions — Bridgeport Continuing Education
The Mini MBA for Attorneys: Labor and Employment Law Essentials — National Business Institute
How to Become a Pivotal Part of Any Wage-and-Hour Practice Group — Sacramento County Bar, Labor & Employment Section
Alternative Dispute Resolution in Employment — National Business Institute
Easy as ABC?: What Business Owners Need to Know About Worker Classification — SCORE Association
Negotiations, Settlement, and Mediation — Federal Bar Association, Sacramento Chapter