Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

We understand your business.
Employee-related issues can steal time and drain energy from progress towards achieving your business goals. Mintz Levin’s Employment, Labor and Benefits attorneys focus on providing clients with a consolidated approach to their complex human resource and employment law issues. By working together, our team brings diverse capabilities to help you maximize one of your most important assets— your employees—while minimizing risks.

From recent legal developments to current trends in employment and compensation practices, we provide clients with informed advice that can help you resolve thorny issues and get you back on track. The counseling and advice we provide, and programs we help you implement, reflect the best practices in dealing with an ever-changing, and challenging, landscape of statutes, regulations and court decisions.

At the same time, we understand that one size does not fit all. We learn about each client’s business and culture so that we can help with strategies, practices, and policies that best fit your unique needs and style. Often the best results—based on this acquired knowledge—are invisible; for example, in many cases a dispute is averted because a successful strategy or best practice is devised and implemented early on.

Mintz Levin’s clients represent a broad cross-section of the business community, encompassing a wide spectrum of industries including manufacturing, retail and consumer products, high tech, energy and clean technology, life sciences, healthcare, education, hospitality, financial services, construction, immigration, and professional services.

Cost-effective service to employers.
Because disputes can be expensive, we put a premium on helping clients resolve disputes quickly and cost effectively through practical and creative solutions. If a dispute reaches litigation, winning early and decisively can translate into saving thousands of dollars and dozens of hours in management time. Some matters on which we regularly assist clients include:

• Assessing and mitigating risks, including those relating to wage/hour and discrimination laws.
   
• Drafting HR policies and procedures such as those relating to discrimination and harassment, leaves of absence, drug and alcohol testing, medical examinations, workplace conduct, progressive discipline and dispute resolution, and other policies that protect your business prerogatives without creating unintended legal rights for employees.
   
• Providing advice on all phases of the employment “life cycle,” including recruiting, hiring, promotion, discipline, termination, and benefit entitlements.
   
• Preparing and maintaining qualified and other retirement, welfare and other benefit plans and programs
   
• Implementing equity and other compensation arrangements.
   
• Drafting critical employment documents such as employment agreements, offer letters, and confidentiality, non-compete, and separation agreements.
   
• Representing employers in union matters, including union avoidance, collective-bargaining negotiations, disputes before the NLRB, and contract administration.
   
• Enforcing non-compete restrictions and trade secret protections.
   
• Employment, labor, and benefits-related due diligence for transactions.
   
• Responding to Department of Labor, EEOC, OSHA and other government agency inquiries and investigations.
   
• Defending discrimination, wage hour and other allegations by employees.

Available audits, training and other programs
 

• Wage-Hour and other Employment Practices Audits, which identify, assess, and help minimize employment practices risks.
   
• Dispute Resolution Policy design and implementation, which maximizes the use of conciliation, mediation, and arbitration, and minimizes the costs and risks associated with jury trials.
   
• HR Basics training that focuses on the legal nuts and bolts of becoming an employer during your start-up phase.
   
• Professionalism in the Workplace program, which trains all employees to avoid workplace conduct fraught with risks, including harassment and discrimination, and teaches management and supervisory personnel how to deal with complaints.
   
• Breakfast briefings and other seminars on new developments and timely topics to keep you and your HR management current with the law.

Our attorneys and staff may come from many ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds, but when it comes to pursuing success for our clients and ourselves, we are cut from the same cloth. We know overcoming challenges, both legal and professional, takes dedication and support from our colleagues.

Founded in 1933, when it was almost impossible for a diverse attorney to thrive at one of Boston’s larger law offices, Mintz Levin was established by two young Jewish attorneys who knew how it felt to be excluded. The firm’s commitment to diversity is a natural outgrowth of their struggle to carve out a more inclusive professional path -- a history that helps explain our dedication to celebrating the differences that create a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere in which to practice law.

We strive to support diverse attorneys and have formal and informal mentoring programs to help diverse attorneys succeed. Mintz Levin’s Professional Development programs support the professional growth of our attorneys, with specific programs for women and minority attorneys.

Mintz Levin is a demonstrated leader in promoting the rights of women, people of color, and the LGBT community. Our core values spell out our goal of creating a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere in which to practice law or work in the legal profession.

Quick Facts

• Women lead numerous practices at Mintz Levin.
• Nearly half of the attorneys at the firm are women.
• Percentages of women Members and Associates at the firm exceed the NALP average for firms of a similar size.
• In 1993 — a decade before it was mandated by the legislature — the firm was one of the first to offer health benefits for same-sex domestic partners.
• In 1986, two Mintz Levin partners were instrumental in creating the Boston Lawyers Group (BLG), a nonprofit organization founded by a consortium of major Boston firms committed to improving the hiring and retention of lawyers of color.

Rankings & Recognitions

• Gold Standard Certification from Women in Law Empowerment Forum
• Top Ten Family Friendly Firms by the Yale Law Women
• Top 20 Law Firms in the US for diversity efforts by Vault 
• Score of 100% on Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index 
• Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality by the Human Rights Campaign
• Corporate Courage Award from the City of Boston 

There was a partner here with a large number of higher education clients. It was great to be able to raise my hand and say, ‘I’m interested in learning that,’ and then have the firm say, ‘We won’t look outside for this capability; we’ll see how you develop.

— Tyrone Thomas, Associate

Diversity Initiatives

• The Diversity Committee reflects the firm’s diversity and meets monthly to formulate and adopt policies that impact recruiting, retention, mentoring, and work allocation.
• Richard Mintz Scholarship is awarded to a first-year law student of color and provides $10,000 toward the student’s second year of tuition, a paid summer position at the firm between the student’s first and second years, and an ongoing work relationship with the firm throughout the student’s second year.
• The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Group has been meeting regularly since 2003 and provides opportunities for mutual support, sharing concerns, and informal mentoring for the firm’s LGBT attorneys and staff members.
• MIATTY is an affinity group for minority attorneys and senior professionals that seeks to strengthen diversity and inclusion in the firm. MIATTY has been meeting on a quarterly basis for over a decade.
• The Women’s Initiative sponsors numerous professional, networking, and social events aimed at supporting and enriching the lives of our female attorneys.
• The Sponsor & Retention Program helps Associates of color build long-term careers at Mintz Levin by pairing them with a sponsoring Member, helping them develop a network within the firm, and helping them build supportive, collegial relationships with their

Diversity Partnerships

We participate in and support numerous diversity-related efforts throughout the country aimed at recruiting and supporting the professional development of diverse attorneys and promoting diversity.

In addition to hosting an annual interview workshop in Boston for law students of color, the firm participates in job fairs for students of color in Boston and DC, and the National LGBT Law Association’s Lavender Law Job Fair. We also participate in the Boston Lawyers Group 1L Summer Diversity Clerkship Program.

Partners in Diversity Nationwide

·         American Intellectual Property Association Education Foundation

·         Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting Law (ALPFA)

·         Athena San Diego

·         Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth (BAGLY)

·         The Boston Lawyers Group (BLG)

·         Boston University Law School Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (APALSA)

·         The Commonwealth Compact

·         DC Minority Attorney Networking Series

·         Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association

·         Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)

·         Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project (GMDVP)

·         Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA)

·         Just the Beginning Foundation (JTBF)

·         Korean American Bar Association of San Diego

·         Lambda Legal

·         Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association

·         Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA)

·         National Black Law Students Association

·         The National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Bar Association

·         New York Asian Women’s Center

·         New York Minority Attorney Networking Series

·         La Raza Lawyers of San Diego

·         South Asian Bar Association (SABA)

·         Women Lawyers Alliance

Richard Mintz Diversity Scholarship

The Richard Mintz Diversity Scholarship is designed to help make our workplace and profession more diverse. Named in memory of Richard Mintz, a partner in the firm for 57 years and the son of one of the firm’s original members, the scholarship provides the recipient with a paid summer position in the firm’s Boston office, $10,000 toward the second year of law school, and a continuing working relationship with our firm  throughout that year.¿¿

"My father and his partners took their responsibility very seriously -- to build a firm that was inclusive and progressive in terms of its approach to diversity," said Richard Mintz.

Diversity Committee

The Diversity Committee’s mission is to understand and value diversity in our firm and clients and to integrate diversity into our vision, culture, business, mission, policies, and practices.

We weave our mission into the firm’s strategic planning and direction. We are responsible for leading the firm’s ongoing diversity efforts. In addition to focusing on expanding opportunities at the firm for attorneys and staff who are of color, women, or part of the LGBT community, we are committed to promoting diversity in the legal profession and throughout our communities.