Andrea Cook is a native of Long Beach, the daughter of an architect and stay at home mom. Ms. Cook attended Long Beach Wilson High School and moved to Mammoth Lakes, California, where she raised her two sons and ran a small restaurant for ten years. Returning to Long Beach, Ms. Cook attended college (UCLA, Honors) and then Southwestern University School of Law. Ms. Cook spent a year in Italy, living and working in the unfamiliar environs of an Italian law firm before returning to Long Beach to establish Andrea Cook & Associates in 1994.
Never satisfied with the status quo in her own life and for those around her, Ms. Cook’s practice focuses on securing the rights of women, people of color, and other minorities. In addition, Ms. Cook has represented plaintiffs in severe personal injury cases, obtaining a seven-figure recovery. Also, Cook & Associates has represented individual employers in employment-related matters, always with a mind toward resolving matters in advance of litigation.
Fearless and creative, Ms. Cook quickly gained a reputation for taking cases of first impression, which tested the boundaries of law or offered novel facts. Of particular note are cases involving HIV disclosure in the workplace, the rights of gays and transgender individuals in the workplace, representing individuals injured by rare and complex disorders as the result of negligence, and most recently, the rights of parents whose children are disabled. In addition to her representation of individuals, Ms. Cook has represented groups of plaintiffs, including female garment workers who attempted to reject unionization and an extended family of African Americans, including three small children, against a large local hotel. Ms. Cook also represented six African American high school students subjected to racist taunts and epithets while attending a predominantly white middle-class high school.
Ms. Cook is familiar with and has litigated in nearly every venue associated with civil rights and employment matters: the California State and Federal Courts, including the state court of Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Other agencies include the California Labor Commission, the EEOC, Merit Systems Protection Board, and various civil service commissions and administrative venues, which are often pre-cursors to filing in the state of federal courts.
Ms. Cook has developed a highly competent team approach to litigation but is involved in and active in every case. The “team” consists of other lawyers and paralegals who share in Ms. Cook’s personalized and compassionate approach to the practice of law. Andrea Cook & Associates is known for seeking and obtaining justice and securing the rights of women and minorities and has done so for close to 30 years.
