Assisting clients with the complexities of today’s employment climate.
With new regulations constantly changing the workplace, companies are presented with more challenging decisions than ever before regarding their workforces. In today’s employment climate, building a relationship with a legal team that can help companies make thoughtful, informed decisions and avoid costly litigation.
Labor and Employment Counseling
Our labor and employment lawyers work closely with clients around the country and in the UK and Europe to provide comprehensive employment counseling, often serving as an extension of their in-house human resources and legal departments. We advise executives and public and private employers of all sizes, boards of directors, compensation committees across a wide spectrum of industries, from start-ups to large corporations to not-for-profit organizations, from art galleries, non-profits, and manufacturing facilities to insurance brokerage firms, international banks, wealth management firms, national retail stores, national healthcare facilities and providers, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers.
As our clients’ right hands regarding labor and employment issues, we address the full range of employment issues, and provide day-to-day counsel on:
- Drafting, negotiating and advising on executive and other employment agreements, severance agreements, restrictive covenants, and inventions and confidentiality agreements in order to protect trade secrets and proprietary information
- Employee discipline and discharge, including under collective bargaining agreements
- Delicate internal workplace investigations
- Negotiating collective bargaining agreements and advising and representing companies facing union organizing, strikes/picketing, and other union activity as well as providing advice on withdrawal liability matters
- Developing and preparing employee handbooks, and training and policy manuals
- Developing and conducting employee training programs, including sexual harassment and positive employee relations
- Evaluating requests made under the Family Medical Leave Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, state workers’ compensation and disability laws
- Minimizing and prevention of risk associated with corporate transactions, corporate restructuring and reductions in force
- Wage-and-hour practices and audits
- Blending of workforces including transactions, mergers, relocations, and closures of unionized facilities
Employment Discrimination
We counsel clients regarding issues related to the federal discrimination statutes, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and their comparable state statutes. We regularly advocate for our clients before the state and federal agencies and courts around the country that administer those laws.
Employment Litigation
While our goal as New York employment lawyers is litigation avoidance, there are times when disputes arise that must be resolved in the courts, the state and federal agencies, or through arbitration or mediation. When this occurs, our employment litigation attorneys aggressively represent our clients interests, including prosecuting and defending restrictive covenants and trade secret claims, defending employers against claims filed by former and current employees, litigating disputes related to employment and vendor contracts, defending wage-and-hour claims arising from the Fair Labor Standards Act and its state and city counterparts.
