Labor and Employment

The Firm has significant experience in traditional labor matters, such as union contract negotiations and labor grievances. We work closely with a wide variety of companies to provide creative and cost-effective solutions to problems in the labor and employment law practice area.

The practice has a strong record of success in defending employers against wrongful dismissal suits; age, race and sex discrimination suits; and other legal actions brought by existing or former employees. We are experienced in prosecuting cases for breach of non-competition agreements and misappropriation of trade secrets. Clients include large industrial companies, financial institutions, major transportation companies, healthcare providers, and small and medium-sized businesses.

We are able to provide clients with specialized advice on the full range of issues in this practice area, including personal privacy issues (raised by drug and alcohol testing and other employee/applicant screening programs) and federal safety issues raised by the growing incidence of violence in the workplace.

The partners, associates and paralegals in this practice area have nearly 200 years of experience spanning all aspects of labor and employment law. Two partners are former NLRB attorneys.

In this practice area, as in others, we are strongly committed to an approach that emphasizes close partnership arrangements with the client to develop business-oriented solutions to legal problems. We are committed to goal-focused budgets and other techniques aimed at maximizing cost effectiveness.

Through our Washington, D.C. office, we deal directly with officials of the Labor Department, the Treasury Department, the IRS, the Health and Human Services Department, the Public Health Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation on matters of interest to individual clients. Such dealings are usually informal, involving discussion of departmental or agency views on the applicability of law and regulations to specific transactions without disclosing the identity of the client.