EMPLOYMENT

           We provide smart, solid advice.  We pride ourselves on returning phone calls and responding to our clients’ needs.  Our firm has a team of dedicated professionals who strive to provide a successful outcome to our clients.

            Regardless of where they find themselves in the process, our clients receive the benefit of our insight and experience.  We provide seminars and in-house training to allow our corporate clients to take pro-active steps to reach decisions that are both legally sound and positively impact the bottom line.  For our individual clients, we assist them at any stage of the employment process, counseling them on decisions they face before, during and after employment. 

            We work with our business clients to keep their workplaces profitable and productive, allowing them to focus on the bottom line while we handle their employment issues. 

            Employment Law Counseling / Training / Investigations

           Our firm has the knowledge and practical expertise to guide employees and employers in the ever changing employment world.  A cohesive workplace leads to increased profit and productivity, which results in greater customer satisfaction.  We provide advice on discrete matters as well as long-term planning to allow our clients the opportunity to focus on the workplace rather than legal issues.

In order to help our clients operate a well-managed business that is proactive rather than reactive, we counsel our clients in all facets of their employment relationships.  The firm advises businesses as to risk avoidance, participates in investigations of workplace claims and gives seminars on important employment law topics.

For any size company, we can provide seminars and workshops in all areas of employment law, including family leave requirements; disability laws; sexual harassment; discrimination laws; and other employment concerns and issues specifically related to the nature of the client’s business.  We encourage an interactive process where participants in training sessions can ask questions, and discuss situations and issues that they have experienced or heard about.

We counsel employers on compliance with the various leave of absence issues that arise under the New Jersey Family Leave Act, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, laws against discrimination and COBRA.  We also give advice on the myriad issues that present themselves to employers on topics such as non-competition agreements; restrictive covenants; trade secrets; drug testing and employee absenteeism.

We assist our employer clients in establishing proper procedures for handling employee complaints.  We draft anti-harassment and discrimination policies or we review and update the employers existing policies.  We conduct, assist in, or provide advice regarding investigations of harassment or discrimination complaints, and can identify the proper corrective action following the investigation.

            For individuals, we can provide guidance on the full range of employment issues.  We can guide individuals struggling with whether to sign a restrictive covenant or if they have already signed one, how that impacts their future employability.  We provide advice on how to handle difficult employment situations, such as what to do about the boss who engages in inappropriate behavior and still keep your job.  Post termination, we can review and negotiate severance agreements.

            Employment Discrimination Litigation

            When a matter reaches the point where litigation is the only recourse, we are fully prepared to litigate on behalf of our clients.  Due to our vast experience representing both employees and employers in discrimination lawsuits, we are able to navigate effectively the often complex procedures involved in litigating the employment case.  Having represented both sides, we know how both employers and employees think about and approach these cases, which helps our clients effectively evaluate whether to settle, what is the most effective strategy and how to best present the case in court. 

            Our attorneys have handled numerous trials, arbitrations and mediations at all levels of the state and federal court system.  We also have experience in New Jersey’s various administrative law forums.  We have handled appeals that have reached our New Jersey Supreme Court as well as the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.  We know and recognize that litigation is often unpleasant and unpredictable, truly a last resort. Thus, we do everything we can to make the process easier for our clients, while aggressively engaging the opposing party.  We have a track record of achieving results for our clients.  

           We have handled lawsuits involving practically every aspect of employment discrimination, such as sexual harassment, gender, homosexuality, race, religion, ethnicity, disability, pregnancy, and more.  Our litigators have also handled increasingly common whistleblower lawsuits. Our firm is familiar with and litigated the veritable alphabet soup of state and federal employment statutes, including CEPA, LAD, Title VII, Sec. 1983, Wage and Hour, ADEA, ADA and so on.  We have represented whistleblowers who sued after being fired by their employers for complaining of environmental contamination.  We litigated a case for teenage women who were sexually harassed at a local chain of a national restaurant.   

On the defense side, we have successfully represented corporations in sexual harassment, disability, race, age and gender cases.  For one corporate client, we successfully tried a case in which the plaintiff alleged she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor, in his apartment, following an evening of drinking.  In another defense case, involving age discrimination, the jury returned a verdict in our client’s favor where the plaintiff alleged that her female supervisor fired her because she was more than twenty years older than her supervisor.

            Many of our cases have broken new legal ground and become precedent for other courts to follow.  We look forward to taking on the most complex cases and the most skilled opposition. We team with our clients to achieve success.  We have represented large corporate entities as well as the individual and successfully litigated against some of the largest law firms in the world.