Employment and Labor
About Our Practice
Our Employment and Labor Law Group has over 35 years experience representing public sector and corporate clients, including Fortune 500 companies such as DuPont, ConocoPhillips, Williams-Sonoma, and Pfizer Inc., and smaller entities such as Crescent Iron Works and NPS Pharmaceuticals. We emphasize the importance of early case assessment and cost-effective litigation management, traditional strengths that have been augmented by the insight of our Of Counsel attorneys, including a former Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and two retired Superior Court Assignment Judges. Our approach is to counsel clients effectively on how to avoid employment-related claims and to provide early recommendations on which cases to defend vigorously and which cases to settle.
Employment Law
We represent clients in wrongful discharge, employee discrimination and sexual harassment litigation in federal and state courts and in administrative proceedings. We defend clients against allegations of all types of discrimination including gender, race, national origin, age and disability. Our attorneys handle Equal Employment Opportunity investigations and civil rights complaints. We assist clients in enforcing the terms of restrictive covenants against departing employees, and in protecting against acts of employee disloyalty or unfair competition.
Our attorneys also work with our clients to ensure compliance with the various wage and hours laws. Some of the types of claims on which we have assisted our clients include employee misclassification, unpaid overtime, improper deductions, and off-the-clock work. We represent clients in state and federal Department of Labor investigations as well as defending wage claims brought before the Department of Labor and/or in federal and state court. Our attorneys also have extensive experience in defending our clients against collective and class action claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New Jersey Wage and Hour laws.
Employment Counseling
We provide our clients with employment and labor counseling to minimize exposure to claims and to avoid litigation. In addition to representing our clients in arbitration proceedings and litigated matters, we regularly counsel clients on:
- Hiring practices
- Executive employment agreements
- Various employment agreements, including:
— Non-compete
— Non-solicitation
— Confidentiality
— Mandatory arbitration
— Class action waivers - Severance agreements
- Employee discipline and discharge
- Employee evaluations
- Employment policies, handbooks and manuals
- Affirmative Action
- EEO compliance
- Protection of trade-secrets, confidential, and propriety information
- Drug testing
- Paid, unpaid, and intermittent leave issues
- Harassment and discrimination
- Disability accommodations
- Monitoring employees/employee privacy issues
- Successorship liability
- Whistleblower and retaliation issues
- Reductions in force
- Internal complaint investigations
- Independent contractors
- Compliance with a variety of State and Federal laws, including:
— The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
— The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
— The New Jersey Family Leave Act (NJFLA)
— Federal and State anti-discrimination statutes
— The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
— The Fair Labor Standards ACt (FLSA)
— The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
— The Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA)
— The Sarbanes-Oxley Act
— The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act
We have extensive experience and frequently conduct in-house training programs for our clients on a variety of issues they face in their workplaces. By way of example, we have developed and conducted training programs on such topics as appropriate hiring practices; conducting employment evaluations; employee privacy issues and monitoring of employees; off-duty conduct and discipline related to same; and conducting internal investigations.
Our team routinely conducts workplace audits in a variety of areas, including wage and hour compliance; employee handbooks and personnel policies; employment evaluation practices; hiring practices; and wage and hour compliance.
Labor Law
Our labor lawyers have broad experience assisting clients in union organizing campaigns and in resolving unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board, the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission, and the New York State Employment Relations Board. Our attorneys also have broad experience in the negotiation and administration of collective bargaining agreements, including grievance arbitration proceedings. We also counsel our clients on a variety of labor issues, including:
- Union avoidance techniques
- Union picketing and boycotts
- Strike preparation
To view a PDF of our Employment and Labor brochure, please click here.
