The Southern California WCAB Offices

Nine district offices, and each one has its own page. Here is what you would want to know before you drive to each: the address and the number, where to park and what it costs, how to get there without a car, what happens at the door, and where to eat.

LOS ANGELES AREA

• Los Angeles

  — serves Central and South Los Angeles.

  The largest workers’ compensation court in California, and the strictest security in the system.

  Address

  320 W. 4th Street, 9th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013 — the Junipero Serra State Office Building

  Phone

  (213) 576-7335 · LAO@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Street parking is limited and monitored. Paid lots run $5–$14 a day; the lot adjacent to the building is about $13.

  Transit

  Metro B/D Line (Red/Purple) to Pershing Square, then the 4th Street stairwell.

  At the door

  Metal detectors and x-ray screening. Allow extra time.

  Watch for

  No food, gum, or drink other than bottled water on the 9th floor.

• Van Nuys

  — serves the San Fernando Valley and the Antelope Valley.

  The meters by the building stop at two hours, and a trial very often runs longer.

  Address

  6150 Van Nuys Blvd, Suite 105, Van Nuys, CA 91401

  Phone

  (818) 901-5367 · VNO@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  The state building structure is $9 a day, and limited. Calvert Street has meters of up to 10 hours, which DIR lists at $10 a day. Street meters near the building are a 2-hour maximum — not enough for a trial or an expedited hearing.

  Transit

  Metro G Line (Orange). Its Van Nuys station is closed until 2027; use the temporary stop at Van Nuys Blvd and Oxnard Street.

  At the door

  Filing is at the information desk in the lobby.

• Marina del Rey

  — serves the Westside, the coast, and the LAX area.

  Parking in the building is $15.50 a day, and there is no rail.

  Address

  4720 Lincoln Blvd, 2nd Floor, Marina del Rey, CA 90292

  Phone

  (310) 482-3820 · MDR@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  In the building, $15.50 a day — and do not park in the retail-only area. The cheaper option is Marina parking lot #4 on Mindanao Way, $6–$8 a day.

  Transit

  Metro bus only. No rail.

• Long Beach

  — serves Long Beach, the harbor, and the South Bay.

  One of the easier offices to attend: free parking, and a café in the building next door.

  Address

  1500 Hughes Way, Suite C203, Long Beach, CA 90810

  Phone

  (562) 590-5001 · LBO@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Free, entered through the front guard station.

  Transit

  Long Beach Transit.

  Food

  A café in the adjacent Building Pod B, on site.

• Pomona

  — serves the eastern San Gabriel Valley end of Los Angeles County.

  Free parking, and nothing to eat within walking distance.

  Address

  732 Corporate Center Drive, Pomona, CA 91768

  Phone

  (909) 623-4301 · Pom@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Free — but only in unmarked spaces or spaces marked “RESERVED FOR 732.” Other reserved spaces are subject to tow. This catches people.

  Transit

  Foothill Transit.

  Food

  Nothing within walking distance. The nearest options are at Temple Avenue and Pomona Boulevard. Eat first.

ORANGE COUNTY

• Santa Ana

  — serves central and southern Orange County.

  The most expensive parking of the Southern California offices, and rail does not really work here.

  Address

  2 MacArthur Place, Suite 600, Santa Ana, CA 92707

  Phone

  (714) 558-4121 · ANA@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Up to $18 a day — the most expensive of the Southern California offices. Additional lots at 3 MacArthur Place and the nearby DoubleTree.

  Transit

  The Metrolink station is about four miles away — not walkable. OCTA bus serves the area.

  Food

  A café across the courtyard at 1 MacArthur Place, with outdoor seating, and restaurants at Hutton Center.

  Watch for

  No food or drink in the waiting room or the hearing rooms.

• Anaheim

  — serves North Orange County.

  The easiest office in the system to reach: free parking, and Metrolink behind the building.

  Address

  1065 N. Link, Suite 170, Anaheim, CA 92806

  Phone

  (714) 414-1800 · Ahm@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Free and ample, on both sides of the building. Do not use reserved, Metrolink, or management spaces.

  Transit

  One of the best-served offices in the system — the Metrolink Inland Empire–Orange County Line, Anaheim Canyon station, is directly behind the building.

  At the door

  Check in at the front counter in Suite 170.

  Food

  Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr., Starbucks, and the Village Shopping Center nearby.

  Watch for

  The state’s own page gives both “N. Link” and “North Pacificenter Drive” for this address — the same street, renamed. Call ahead if you are unfamiliar with the campus.

INLAND EMPIRE

• San Bernardino

  — serves the valley and the high desert.

  Photo ID at the door, for everyone who comes with you.

  Address

  464 W. Fourth Street, Suite 239, San Bernardino, CA 92401 — the Rosa Parks Building

  Phone

  (909) 383-4341 · SBR@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  The state structure north of the building is $5 a day — the cheapest paid parking in the system — and there is a free public lot one block away.

  Transit

  Omnitrans.

  At the door

  Photo ID is mandatory. All visitors sign in and show identification.

  Food

  A first-floor café, take-out only; Subway and Jack in the Box nearby.

• Riverside

  — serves Riverside County and the Coachella Valley.

  If the floor is full, the people with you may wait in the food court.

  Address

  3737 Main Street, Suite 300, Riverside, CA 92501

  Phone

  (951) 782-4269 · RIV@dir.ca.gov

  Parking

  Downtown meters and city lots; a small lot at University & Main; and the Market Street garage — first 90 minutes free.

  Transit

  Metrolink Riverside Line, Downtown Riverside station, about a mile away. Riverside Transit Agency serves the area.

  At the door

  Photo ID is required at the security desk. If the floor is at capacity, the people with you may be asked to wait in the ground-floor food court until your hearing has concluded. Plan for it.

  Food

  The ground-floor food court, Mission Inn restaurants, and the Main Street promenade.

In practice it is usually the district office the state’s ZIP code list assigns to where you live or where the injury occurred — but the rule is § 5501.5(a), which also allows the county where your attorney’s principal place of business is, with your written consent. If the attorney’s county is chosen, the employer may object within 30 days, and a timely objection sends the case to where you live or where you were hurt.

Venue can be changed by petition for good cause — for example where the medical treatment, the witnesses, and the employer are all in a different district.

Not every hearing needs a lawyer, and if yours does not, we will tell you on the phone. These are the moments, at any of these offices, when one usually matters.

• A Declaration of Readiness arrived.

  The time to object is 10 calendar days from service. A party who does not object waives its objections to proceeding on the issues in it, absent extraordinary circumstances.

• Your settlement conference is set.

  Discovery closes that day, and a missing report, an un-deposed evaluator or an unclaimed body part becomes permanent at it.

• A settlement is ready to be walked through.

  A Compromise and ReleaseC&R — Compromise and Release A lump sum that closes future medical treatment permanently. can go before a judge the same day, and it closes future medical care for a lump sum. Read it before it reaches the judge.

• Your case is set for trial.

  It is in person, and the injured worker is normally the key witness. Plan a full day even though the hearing itself is usually shorter.

• Your case is stuck on whether the injury is covered.

  A priority conference, available where the worker is represented, must be held within 30 days of the request. It is the mechanism that moves a compensability dispute.

• You need an interpreter.

  The claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer. pays for a certified interpreter at a hearing. Without a lawyer, the defendant must arrange it, so ask in writing, early.

Call the same day if the claim was denied, you were fired or punished for filing, or more than a year has passed with nothing paid. Those involve deadlines that cannot be fixed once missed.

And when you probably do not need us. If the claim was accepted, treatment is being authorized, payments are arriving every two weeks, and there is no permanent impairment, you probably do not. Every DWCDWC Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations. Administers the system. Information Services Center: 1-800-736-7401. district office has an Information & Assistance officer who answers questions and helps with forms at no cost. We will tell you that on the phone, too.

The walk-through

A walk-through is how a settlement gets in front of a judge the same day, without filing a Declaration of Readiness and without waiting for a hearing notice. It is the reason some settlements get approved in a week and others take months.

What can be walked through: a Compromise and Release, Stipulations with Request for AwardStips — Stipulations with Request for Award An agreed percentage paid over time, with future medical left open, and reopening available within five years of the date of injury. These are not two prices for the same thing., petitions for deposition attorney’s fees, petitions to compel attendance at an exam or deposition, and petitions for costs.

What you need: the settlement document itself, and proof of service on all other parties. If there is no existing case number, the documents must be submitted by noon the business day before.

Hours: every office must have staff available 8:00–11:00 a.m. and 1:00–4:00 p.m. on court days. There is no appointment system — it is first come, first served.

One thing to prepare a client for: the judge may approve, disapprove, suspend action, or accept the matter for later review. You do not always walk out with a signed award.

The Mandatory Settlement Conference

By statute an MSCMSC Mandatory Settlement Conference. Where most cases end — and where discovery closes. is held 10 to 30 days after a Declaration of Readiness is filed, and if the case does not settle, trial is to follow within 75 days.

The single most important thing nobody tells injured workers: the MSC closes discovery on the framed issues.

Evidence not disclosed and listed by then is generally excluded. And the exhibit rules are strict — each exhibit must be identified by author, date, and description, and medical reports with different authors or dates are separate exhibits. Cases are lost here, on paperwork.

The parties must meet and confer beforehand — judges open by asking what efforts were made — and must complete a joint Pre-Trial Conference Statement by the close of the conference, listing issues, stipulations, witnesses, and exhibits. Someone with actual settlement authority must be present, not reachable by phone later.

On timing: MSCs are calendared in blocks, not at individual times. Multiple cases are set for the same session and taken in order. Waiting is normal — plan a half day. Since conferences moved to video, that wait happens in a virtual waiting room rather than a hallway, which is easier on an injured back but no more predictable.

Status and priority conferences

A status conference is a low-stakes check-in when discovery is not complete. It does not close discovery.

A priority conference must be held within 30 days of the request, and is available where the worker is represented and the dispute involves employment or whether the injury arose out of employment — or where the employer was illegally uninsured. Where possible, the same judge hears all conferences in the case, and the matter is set for trial as expeditiously as possible once discovery is complete.

If your case is stuck on a compensability dispute, this is the mechanism that moves it.

Trial

Trials are in person. The injured worker is normally the key witness, and failure to appear has consequences. Plan a full day even though the hearing itself is usually shorter.

Most cases end at the mandatory settlement conference, and the run of dates that leads to it is short. Once either side files a Declaration of Readiness to ProceedDOR Declaration of Readiness to Proceed. Forces the calendar. You have 10 calendar days to object, or objections to proceeding on its issues are waived., these are the days that follow.

A case review is worth the most before the settlement conference, and much less afterward. After that date, what the file is missing stays missing.

Whatever is not on the exhibit list at the settlement conference does not come in at trial. So the work happens before it.

1. We read the file before the settlement conference. A missing supplemental report, an un-deposed evaluator, an unclaimed body part, an unraised apportionmentApportionment Dividing permanent disability between industrial and non-industrial causes. It is to disability, not to findings on an image. defect: each can be dealt with before that date, and becomes permanent at it.
2. We list every witness and every exhibit. The joint Pretrial Conference StatementPretrial Conference Statement The joint document listing issues, stipulations, proposed ratings, witnesses, and every exhibit. What is not on it does not come in. sets out the issues, the stipulations, each side’s proposed permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. rating, every witness, and every exhibit, with the author, date, and title of each document.
3. We prepare you for the day. Whether you will be on video or in the building, which session you are set in, the ID and the security at your office, and who may wait with you. If the facts are disputed, you will testify, briefly: tell the truth, answer only what is asked, do not guess, and describe your limits accurately, including the good days.
4. We watch the clocks after the decision. A Petition for ReconsiderationPetition for Reconsideration Appeal from a final order. 20 days. A non-final order takes a Petition for Removal instead. has 20 days, and only from a final order. A non-final order is challenged by Petition for Removal instead, and filing the wrong one wastes the deadline.

Your Notice of Hearing carries the join link for a remote proceeding. Keep it.

Do you personally have to attend an MSC? If you are represented, your attorney’s appearance technically satisfies the rule — but the state’s own guidance expects the worker to attend conferences, and a judge confirming a settlement will want you available. Since conferences are on video, the practical answer is: attend. If you are unrepresented, you must appear.

You do not pay for an interpreter. The claims administrator is liable for interpreter fees at Board hearings and arbitrations, at your deposition, at medical treatment appointments, at examinations requested by the claims administrator, at medical-legal evaluations, and at Information & Assistance conferences.

For hearings, depositions, and arbitrations the interpreter must be certified — or provisionally certified by agreement or by the judge’s finding.

How to get one: tell your attorney, who is responsible for arranging it. For a phone interpreter, including for video proceedings, call 1-800-736-7401. If you are unrepresented, the Information & Assistance Unit provides free help and interpreter access.

One practical warning: interpretation over video roughly doubles the length of a hearing and is more failure-prone than in person. Join early, use a computer rather than a phone if you can, and say immediately if you cannot hear the interpreter.

Disability accommodations are available through the WCABWCAB Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The court system that decides these cases. 23 district offices statewide., the Information & Assistance Unit, and the Disability Evaluation UnitDEU Disability Evaluation Unit. Produces formal ratings from medical reports. — assistive listening devices, ergonomic chairs, voice amplification, readers, large print, Braille, magnifiers, and sign-language interpreters, among others.

Request it as early as possible, using the state’s accommodation request form or by contacting your district office’s accommodation coordinator. Sign-language interpreters, videoconferencing, and computerized translation need 5 to 10 business days’ notice.

A separate request is required for each hearing date.

Whichever office has your case, the first call is the same. If your case is set at a particular office, ask on the call — the answer will be specific.