Practice Strengths

• Eleven employment partners listed are in The Best Lawyers in America.
• Our employment and labor practice is ranked among the leading practices in Ohio, Florida and Colorado (Chambers USA, 2010).
• Chambers USA 2010 lists a total of eight Florida and Ohio employment partners as leaders in the field.
• Employment lawyers have received special regional recognition in Florida Trend's “Legal Elite" publication.
• Some of the individual recognition our lawyers have attained include selection as one of America's leading black lawyers by Black Enterprise magazine, receiving the District of Columbia Bar's “Legends in the Law” award, the Republican National Lawyers Association's “Republican Lawyer of the Year” award and inclusion as a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Employment Litigation: Putting the EEOC on the Defense

Client: FORTUNE 100 Technology Company

Type of Matter: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought a lawsuit challenging the inclusion of a pregnant employee in a workforce reduction.

Our Client's Challenge: Overcoming the emotional testimony (and solid performance reviews) of the terminated employee.

The Goal: Successfully defend our client in a federal jury trial in Detroit.

Our Strategy: We carefully explained the legitimate business reasons for the employee’s inclusion in the reduction (relatively weak technical skill set) and focused on the EEOC’s aggressive treatment of company witnesses at trial. We ultimately succeeded in portraying the EEOC as oppressive and overreaching in attacking the character of reasonable people who honestly made the difficult business decision of whom to include in a workforce reduction.

Results: The jury found for our client in less than two hours.

Employment Litigation Experience

• Obtained a defense verdict for an energy client after a two-week trial in the case of two original putative class representatives.
• Successfully defended a manufacturing client during eight-day trial on gender discrimination claim when a defense verdict was reached in just 20 minutes.
• Obtained summary judgment for a national insurer in a wage-and-hour case that is frequently cited by the U.S. Department of Labor and other courts, and that was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to our client.
• Successfully defended the largest hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, in a complex case where the plaintiff, a former department director, made a whistleblower claim under Florida law. After a lengthy trial, the jury rejected all of the plaintiff's claims and returned a verdict for our client.
• Won a jury verdict in retaliatory discharge case in Southern Texas court where the plaintiff was terminated 10 days after filing a workers' compensation claim.
• Successfully defended a banking client against a former executive's $5 million lawsuit over the outsourcing of her responsibilities. We showed that the company's action was based on sound industry practice and prevailed after a 17-day jury trial in a court where the plaintiff's husband was a judge.
• Successfully defended a FORTUNE 500 client in a week-long bench trial in a case alleging tortious interference with a consulting agreement, where the plaintiff was alleging $35 million in damages.
• In what defense lawyers say is a first, we helped our client receive a favorable settlement with the EEOC because not enough claimants had qualified to be paid out of the settlement fund.
• Won a unanimous jury verdict after a week-long trial for our client, a national newspaper publisher. The case involved allegations of ADA violations, the Tennessee Human Rights Act, the Tennessee Handicap Act and the Tennessee Whistleblower statute.
• Won a unanimous jury verdict in favor of our client, a national insurer, in a wrongful discharge case brought under Ohio law. The jury was out less than one hour.
• After an eight-day trial in federal court in Buffalo, New York, we won a jury verdict for our client, a global leader in the information services industry, in a case that was initiated over 10 years ago as a sex discrimination class action seeking a class of several hundred current and former female employees.
• Won a unanimous jury verdict for a FORTUNE 100 client after a week-long race discrimination trial in federal court in Ohio.
• In a six-plaintiff race discrimination lawsuit, we achieved a significant sanctions award for our client after convincing the court that the plaintiffs' action was so meritless that sanctions were warranted.
• Convinced federal court that there is no right to jury trial in whistleblower cases brought under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
• Won summary judgment for a major airline in a frequently cited Sixth Circuit decision that is a leading case defining constructive discharge.