Connell Foley’s Labor and Employment attorneys are accomplished advisors and seasoned litigators, well-versed in the many complex legal obligations impacting employers. The group offers services to a diverse client base, including public and private corporations, non-profit organizations, institutions of higher education, municipalities, public agencies, multi-employer trade associations, and financial services firms.
Employment counseling and risk management is an important focus of our practice. We work closely with our employer clients in developing best practices to minimize and avoid employment claims and foster compliance with applicable laws affecting the workplace. Our attorneys also conduct internal investigations on behalf of employers into allegations of wrongdoing.
When litigation ensues, our experienced litigators provide a vigorous defense to employers against a variety of claims under federal and state laws. Our group has successfully tried numerous cases to verdict.
Our Range of Services
Our group provides a broad range of services:
- Proactive Counseling
- Non-Compete Agreements and Trade Secrets
- Litigation and Agency Charge Defense, Arbitration, and Mediation
- Employee Handbooks
- Internal Investigations
- Workplace Harassment Prevention Training
- Labor-Management Relations
Proactive Compliance Counseling
In the area of employment law advice and counsel, we emphasize a preventive approach. Our focus is to assist our clients in making employment-related decisions to avoid or reduce the risks of litigation, while maintaining a productive and well-managed work force. We accomplish this by providing our clients' executives, human resources directors, and managers with proactive and preventative counseling and training on every facet of the employment relationship. We provide comprehensive advice, assistance, audits, and training with respect to:
- Employee screening and hiring
- Performance reviews
- Compliance with wage and hour laws
- Employment at-will developments
- Formulating personnel policies and employee handbooks
- Strategies against workplace harassment
- Discrimination and retaliation
- Employee dishonesty and disloyalty, discipline, and terminations
- Managing employee medical leaves of absence
- Reasonable accommodations
- Privacy issues
- Drug and alcohol testing
- Immigration matters
- Reductions in force, mass layoffs, and plant and business closings
- Separation agreements and general releases
- Personnel file management and record keeping requirements
Non-Compete Agreements and Trade Secrets
Our employment law attorneys are well-versed in protecting our clients’ trade secrets and proprietary information critical to their ability to maintain a competitive advantage. Whether counseling clients on measures to protect proprietary information or making applications to enforce employment and other non-disclosure covenants, our lawyers have the expertise and experience to secure vital commercial assets. In addition to working with clients to develop technology and comprehensive trade secret protection programs, our preventative services include:
- Drafting non-compete agreements, restrictive covenants, non-disclosure agreements, and similar documents
- Preparing executive and individual employment agreements
- Auditing trade secret protections
- Consulting on electronic information retention and security policies
Litigation and Agency Charge Defense, Arbitration, and Mediation
Our employment attorneys represent management at all levels of workplace law and dispute resolution--federal and state courts, administrative hearings (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights), and mediation and arbitration. We vigorously and effectively defend and advocate for employers in litigation involving claims asserted under federal and state laws, including:
- Discrimination and Equal Opportunity
- Age -- Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD)
- Disability -- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); NJLAD
- Race -- Title VII; NJLAD
- Sex -- Title VII-Civil Rights Act; NJLAD
- Workplace Harassment -- Title VII; NJLAD
- Employment and Termination Issues
- Employment At-Will
- Breach of Contract
- Non-Compete Agreements
- Employment Policies and Handbooks
- Termination
- Worker Adjustment and Restraining Notification (WARN) Act
- Reductions in Work Force
- Unemployment Compensation
- Work Environment and Safety
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
- Workers’ Compensation
- Health and Benefits
- HIPAA
- ERISA
- Disability Plans
- Employee Benefits
- Medical Leaves of Absence
- ADA
- Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
- New Jersey Family Leave Act (NJFLA)
- Compensation Issues
- Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); New Jersey State Wage and Hour Law
- Wage Payment -- Administrative and court actions
- Whistleblower
- New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA)
- Sarbanes-Oxley Act
- Workplace Torts
- Assault
- Battery
- Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
- Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Employee Handbooks
One of the many challenges that employers face is how to draft an employee handbook. We solve this challenge by preparing comprehensive and practical employee handbooks that are customized to each employer’s specific business practices and size. We draft each employee handbook to accomplish four main objectives: (1) clear communication with employees; (2) administrative efficiency; (3) best employment practices to avoid or minimize workplace disputes; and (4) proactive measures addressing changes in laws, liability trends, and business climate. We also periodically review and update our clients’ employee handbooks to ensure their continued compliance with complex federal and state employment laws.
Internal Investigations
Our internal investigations practice is a multi-disciplinary group of lawyers focused on representing corporations and their officers, directors, and employees in internal investigations, grand jury investigations and trials, administrative enforcement proceedings (including SEC proceedings), and other types of government investigations. The group also counsels directors on corporate governance issues, with particular emphasis on director oversight, fiduciary duty, and liability issues. With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act’s expanded whistleblower provisions and the resultant surge of governmental investigations and proceedings, our group's internal investigation work has become more frequent, complex, and vital to our clients. Highlights from the group's practice, which has handled a broad range of matters involving securities, banking, antitrust, tax, health care, environmental, political and campaign activities, and US and foreign government procurement, include:
- Investigation of a whistleblowers’ claim that the structure of an IPO was fatally flawed and misled investors
- Conducting an investigation regarding alleged misappropriation of competitor data
- Representation of a law firm engaged by an audit committee to investigate related-party transactions, precipitating a Delaware shareholder derivative action
- Representation of a law firm engaged to investigate a municipal official and later named as a party in a subsequent discrimination action
Workplace Harassment Prevention Training
We have extensive experience in conducting workplace harassment prevention training programs for employers. Our one-hour training program is structured to provide practical information and teaching examples in a manner that supports our clients’ objectives and budgets, with minimal disruption to the flow of the work day.
Labor-Management Relations
Our labor attorneys have experience in complex and sophisticated matters representing employers in both the private and public sectors across virtually all industries. For our unionized employer clients, we offer advice and representation in connection with:
- Collective bargaining negotiations
- Labor contract administration
- Union representation campaigns
- Strike preparations
- Unfair labor practice charges
- Grievances and labor arbitrations
We have been involved in scope of negotiations petitions, unit clarification petitions, decertification proceedings, labor strikes, and other labor disputes that result in administrative and legal proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board and the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission. For our non-unionized employer clients, we offer advice and representation in connection with union organization avoidance, election campaigns, and related concerted union activities.
