Our client advisory work includes the creation, modification and implementation of workplace rules, problem solving with respect to workplace issues, employee morale and productivity, reductions in force and discrete job eliminations. We also counsel with respect to—or handle directly—internal training and complaint investigation and resolution, and attend to our clients’ compliance with laws concerning wage and hour, workplace safety and environment, disability and leave issues as well as the assessment and implementation of reasonable accommodations to employees who require same.
We also assist our clients in understanding and complying with federal, state and local laws with respect to wages and hours, including the creation, maintenance and refinement of job descriptions, proper classification of workforce members as exempt or non-exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and its analogs (as well as pertinent regulations and wage orders), and proper practices with regard to recordation of hours and compliance with overtime policies. We also defend our employer clients in connection with individual claims of FLSA violations as well as potential collective actions and engage in such processes as are appropriate to resolve claims associated therewith. We involve ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, in wage audits and inquiries in order to ensure the success of such audits and remediation of any claimed deficiencies. We also assist our clients in connection with similar audits and inquiries by other relevant agencies with respect to workplace safety, workers’ compensation coverage, unemployment insurance claims and related administrative matters.
We counsel and train our clients in the maintenance and enforcement of policies which prohibit workplace harassment and other violations of statutes which prohibit employment discrimination. As such, we defend our clients in administrative claims made before the EEOC, the New York State Division of Human Rights and the New York City Commission on Human Rights as well as similar agencies in other jurisdictions and strategically and thoughtfully defend claims brought in federal and state courts. We also regularly assist our individual clients in prosecuting and enforcing their rights before agencies and courts. As advocates of alternative dispute resolution, we are often able to achieve successful results for our clients through mediation and before the expenditure of significant sums on litigation costs.
We also represent and counsel employers in connection with their existing collective bargaining relationships with labor organizations, including collective bargaining and grievance administration, and assist our clients in all techniques of preventive labor relations, which include appearance and formal process before the National Labor Relations Board and analogous state agencies.
