From left, attorneys Janet Varnell, Hassan Zavareei and F. Paul Bland

An intriguing assemblage of Florida and Washington lawyers is backing a former Trump campaign staffer accusing Donald Trump of kissing her without her consent in 2016.

The team represents Alva Johnson, who sued Donald Trump in his individual capacity, and his 2016 campaign, accusing Trump of forcibly kissing her outside a Tampa political rally in August 2016. The complaint filed Monday in Tampa also accuses the campaign of paying Johnson, a black female, less than her white and male peers.

“Ms. Johnson filed this case seeking justice for herself and others victimized by a man whose predatory behavior has gone unchecked for decades and whose campaign embodied his own sexism,” a news release said. The lawyers are hoping to certify the case as a collective action and are seeking injunctive relief as well as damages and a jury trial.

The White House has denied Johnson's allegation.

Hassan Zavareei, a trial lawyer in Washington and name partner at Tycko & Zavareei, is the lead attorney representing Johnson, although he noted in a phone call Monday that it was a team effort. Zavareei founded his firm with partner Jonathan Tycko in 2002 after the two left Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to work on plaintiffs-side litigation.

Before that, Zavareei was a Russian-speaking flight attendant for Delta Air Lines, according to his firm bio. He then attended and graduating from University of California, Berkeley's law school in 1996.

Zavareei's firm now has offices in Washington and Oakland, California, and works mostly in consumer class actions. The firm represents clients like tenants, employees, whistleblowers and more. The firm has four female lawyers.

Zavareei also brought on a team of lawyers from Florida, led by Janet Varnell of Varnell & Warwick in Lady Lake. The firm focuses mostly on consumer protection class actions and has also handled civil rights trials and police misconduct cases. The firm helped successfully sue the Marion County Sheriff's Office and two deputies in federal court over the 2012 shooting death of an unarmed man named Joshua Salvato.

Taking the lead on any nondisclosure agreement and arbitration issues that Johnson's suit could raise are lawyers from the nonprofit legal advocacy group Public Justice. Zavareei and Varnell serve on the organization's board. Varnell said that's how the two attorneys got to know each other.

Paul Bland, executive director at Public Justice, could be well-posed to tackle those secrecy issues. He recently argued a class action procedure case before the U.S. Supreme Court, representing George Jackson, who was locked in a dispute with Citibank and Home Depot. Varnell & Warwick also represented Jackson in the case, Home Depot USA v. Jackson.

Public Justice “has had more success challenging forced arbitration” cases than any law firm or nonprofit organization in the country, Bland said Monday.

Johnson's lawsuit against Trump was assigned to U.S. District Judge William Jung of the Middle District of Florida. Jung was nominated by Trump in  2017 and confirmed last September. A former clerk to Justice William Rehnquist when he was an associate justice, Jung was previously nominated to the court by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.