Fisher & Phillips LLP

Attorneys in this practice utilize all aspects of Fisher & Phillips' labor and employment expertise to provide practical guidance to employers to develop and maintain effective workplace safety and health management programs.

Our attorneys assist employers in responding to inspections, defending litigation, and managing workplace catastrophes. These attorneys draw upon extensive experience in representing employers before numerous entities, including OSHA and MSHA, state agencies, and related organizations such as the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms (ATF), state fire marshals, and others. Fisher & Phillips attorneys approach matters from a strategic standpoint and consider issues under the National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and other relevant legal schemes.

Additionally, our attorneys assist employers to establish and implement substance abuse testing and prevention programs, as well as policies and procedures addressing violence in the workplace. The attorneys work with employers involved with workplace violence events to provide trauma response, counseling, and threat assessment, and we seek restraining orders and injunctions where appropriate against violent or threatening persons.

Our attorneys work closely with and manage outside firms and professionals, creating a unique multi-disciplinary approach to employee safety and health in the workplace. The practice services include:

Prevention, Preparedness and Enforcement

Prevention

Our attorneys assist employers with the overall development and legal review of safety and health management programs, with a special focus on self-audits and inspections, training, record-keeping, integration of safety programs with other employment policies and procedures, and efforts to minimize related civil liability and repeat citations. The attorneys consider issues associated with unionized settings and work with outside safety professionals and experts, often utilizing self-audits and inspections by such professionals to provide legal guidance that is covered by the attorney-client privilege. Attorneys utilize industry-specific experience to learn and meet a client's business needs.

Preparedness

Whether responding to a simple informal OSHA complaint, dealing with a full-blown MSHA, Federal or State-plan OSHA inspection, or a whistleblower investigation, our attorneys assist employers in determining areas of vulnerability, determining manager roles, and developing the process needed for response.

Enforcement

When MSHA, OSHA or other safety-related citations are issued, our attorneys help employers evaluate their position and minimize exposure to penalties and fines. We have broad experience in handling cases involving repeat or willful citations, corporate-wide investigations, whistleblower actions, construction and multi-employer settings, OSHA "Significant Cases" (cases with over $100,000 in fines), “Egregious Enforcement Program” (EEP) cases, and catastrophic and high visibility cases such as explosions, crane collapses, and employee fatality cases. Whether negotiating a settlement at an OSHA informal conference, or defending an employer in litigation before the Occupational Safety & Review Commission, our attorneys use their knowledge and experience to vigorously defend employers. We also coordinate with other counsel to provide OSHA and labor and employment advice in the context of criminal proceedings, construction disputes, and the civil litigation flowing from workplace catastrophes.

As in all areas of our labor and employment practice, we have developed cost effective strategies to manage large cases, as well as to provide guidance for smaller citations, often working with safety consultants and experts.

Abatement and correction issues arise after the issuance of safety citations, regardless of whether the citations are contested. Our attorneys provide assistance with ongoing OSHA abatement commitments, as well as providing assistance to employer efforts to improve safety, eliminate hazards, or comply with multi-year abatement or corporate obligations.

Catastrophe Management

Fisher & Phillips attorneys understand the confusion and the resulting quick response demanded by workplace catastrophes. Managing a catastrophe involves not only management of sophisticated legal issues, but also media relations, dealing with the families of the killed or injured employees, preparing for possible civil or criminal proceedings, and working with insurers, regulators, experts, and other involved parties.

Whistleblower Defense

Our attorneys assist employers in responding to claims under the 17 whistleblower laws administered by OSHA, as well as related state whistleblower laws.

Rulemaking

Fisher & Phillips represents employers and industry associations in preparing for the effects of new legislation or regulatory standards, as well as assisting with comments and involvement in rulemaking proceedings.

Our Firm's commitment to diversity is nearly a half-century old. Our first woman partner was Margie Pitt Hames, hired in 1962. She was soon joined by Dorothy Toth Beasley, now a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals. In 1973, Ms. Hames and Judge Beasley made legal history by being the first women attorneys to argue both sides of a case in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was Doe v. Bolton, a companion case to Roe v. Wade. Although both were at different firms at the time, Ike Fisher, one of our founders, referred to the historic argument as one of the proudest moments of his career.

Our goal today is to continue that tradition of inclusion, and expand upon it. We strive to recruit, hire, develop, retain and promote diverse attorneys and staff at all levels.

While this spirit of openness is engrained in our spirits, we have also formalized our efforts. We have established a Diversity Committee, composed of partners, of counsel, and associates from across the country, all of whom represent differences in ethnicity, race, gender, religion, lifestyles, backgrounds, and viewpoints. The Diversity Committee's goals can be summarized in five key initiatives:

1. On-going firm-wide education on diversity issues and programs;
2. Lateral recruitment, including a lateral hiring strategy designed to build a "critical mass" of minority and women attorneys across all experience levels of the firm;
3. Retention and advancement, including the development of a firm-wide mentoring and training program that ensures support and development for all associates;
4. Community outreach that will increase our support of and connection with women and minority-owned businesses, professional organizations and underprivileged communities; and
5. Identification and recruitment of top tier minority candidates graduating from law school.

We actively participate in diversity job fairs, including the Southeastern Minority Job Fair, which has led to our hiring several attorneys of diverse backgrounds. We also participate in the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) job fair, and regularly interview at law schools which boast a large number of minority law students. In addition, our network of recruiters specializes in finding attorneys of color.

Aggressively recruiting qualified women and minority candidates is just a start: we also make every effort to retain them. Our firm-wide mentoring system pairs each associate with a partner-mentor. In addition, each member of the firm's Diversity Committee serves as a liaison to one or more of the firm's offices to provide additional support and resources. The Committee members are also available to help associates with their questions or concerns.

We've developed comprehensive training programs that address not only specialized legal skills in the Labor & Employment law practice, but also general skills such as client communications and marketing – core skills for preparing associates to fulfill roles as partners and leaders.

We're proud that we have a long-standing part-time policy that is tailored to fit the needs of each attorney who requires a reduced schedule. We recognize and appreciate the importance of enabling all attorneys to continue their careers while balancing the demands of professional and family life. Our benefits cover domestic-partner relationships as part of our overall effort to value, respect, and assure equal treatment to all employees regardless of sexual orientation.

We also regularly sponsor and participate in a number of diversity initiatives in our communities and host in-office events for law students and young attorneys from diverse backgrounds. These events are designed to help young attorneys learn how to succeed as associates.

Finally, many of our lawyers are members of, and serve in leadership positions in local and national organizations that help promote diversity in the legal profession, including: the Corporate Counsel Women of Color; the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys; the annual Lavender Law Conference; the National Asian-Pacific American Bar Association; the National Bar Association; and the National Employment Law Council.