The state Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) keeps one of its two Orange County district offices in Santa Ana itself, at 2 MacArthur Place, and lists the city’s ZIP codes with it. Every Santa Ana ZIP code we entered in the DWC’s ZIP code locator in October 2026 (92701, 92703, 92704, 92705, 92706 and 92707) returned that office.
We are the Law Office of Jesse Melendrez, a Newport Beach firm in the same county, and we handle injured workers’ cases at this office.
At 2 MacArthur Place
- Santa Ana district office
- 2 MacArthur Place, Suite 600, Santa Ana, CA 92707-7704
- Main line 714-558-4121
- Information and Assistance (I&A) unit 714-942-7576
Besides the courtrooms, the DWC lists two units at this address: the Disability Evaluation Unit, which rates permanent disability from medical reports, and the I&A unit. Court sessions run from 8:30 a.m. to noon and from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m., and the lobby opens 30 minutes before each one. The DWC says parking around the building costs up to $18 a day.
Is 2 MacArthur Place the firm’s office?
No. The DWC’s office is at 2 MacArthur Place in Santa Ana. Ours is at 4695 MacArthur Court, 11th Floor, Newport Beach. The street names are close, but these are separate buildings in separate cities, so a hearing notice and a meeting with us can point to two different places.
Which county’s office hears a Santa Ana case?
Labor Code section 5501.5 ties venue to three places: the worker’s home county on the filing date, the county of the injury, and, for a represented worker, the county of the lawyer’s principal place of business. For a Santa Ana resident hurt at a Santa Ana job, with our firm as counsel, every one of them is Orange County. Someone who lives in Santa Ana but was hurt at a job in Los Angeles County could file in either county. Only the lawyer’s-county choice is open to the employer’s objection, which subdivision (c) allows within 30 days, and a filing in Orange County, with its two offices, includes the worker’s written consent to the office chosen.
What the I&A unit at 2 MacArthur Place does
Information and Assistance officers are DWC employees. The DWC’s guidebook says they answer basic questions, call the claims administrator to clear up misunderstandings and hold meetings to resolve disputes, and that most of their services are meant for workers without a lawyer.
They cannot prepare a case, fill out forms for a worker or argue on a worker’s behalf. The Santa Ana unit is at 714-942-7576, and the DWC’s statewide line is 1-800-736-7401.
How we handle cases from Santa Ana
A Santa Ana case starts with a read of the file: the DWC-1 claim form, every letter from the claims administrator (the person handling the claim for the insurer or the employer), the pay records and the medical reports.
When the firm takes the case, we file the Application for Adjudication of Claim, track each deadline, see the case through the qualified medical evaluator (QME) process and appear for the client at each conference and hearing.
The benefits we handle
A denied claim has its own page. So do treatment denials by utilization review (UR, the claims administrator’s medical review) and independent medical review (IMR, the outside review the DWC arranges when a UR decision is disputed), temporary disability checks that come late or stop, and permanent disability ratings.
The others are QME evaluations, the SJDB voucher (the supplemental job displacement benefit, for a permanent partial disability when the employer does not offer regular, modified or alternative work), and medical treatment inside the employer’s medical provider network (MPN).
Santa Ana’s largest employers
The City of Santa Ana’s financial report for the year ended June 30, 2025 lists the County of Orange as the largest employer in the city, with 17,713 employees, followed by the Santa Ana Unified School District, Santa Ana College, a hospital and the city itself.
The DWC’s guidebook notes that every employer must either carry workers’ comp insurance or be self-insured. For a Santa Ana worker, the claim form, the deadlines and the district office are the same either way.
