Areas of Expertise

General Employment Counseling

Fish & Richardson's employment attorneys work in partnership with our clients to develop policies and practices that comply with the ever-changing state and federal employment statutes, such as Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), and (in California) the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency Act (ICRA), and many others. Our counseling expertise offers the first - and often the most effective - line of defense against expensive employment litigation. Our counseling practice includes: review and/or preparation of employee handbooks; training on workplace harassment and other employment topics; preparing for and managing reductions-in-force; counseling, disciplining and separating employees; negotiating and drafting separation and release agreements; wage and hour compliance; managing employee leaves; and strategic hiring practices. In addition to providing timely advice at our clients' request, we also offer periodic Issue Alerts and seminars, all of which provide our clients with the latest legal developments, emerging issues, and key strategies to reduce the risk of liability.

Non-competition and Trade Secret Advice and Litigation

Fish & Richardson employment lawyers have developed valuable expertise in the protection of trade secrets and prevention of unfair competition. We assist our clients in protecting their valuable trade secrets through the use of carefully-drafted proprietary information and inventions assignment agreements, post-employment non-solicitation and other non-interference covenants and, where enforceable, non-compete agreements. Our California lawyers are specialists in advising firm clients on how to successfully hire into California out-of-state employees with covenants not to compete. When necessary, we aggressively litigate cases involving misappropriation of trade secrets and enforcing restrictive covenants; in these cases, we have been highly successful in the early stages of the litigation - the most important part - by obtaining temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctive relief. We also have aggressively defended numerous cases brought to enforce restrictive covenants or seek redress for alleged employee poaching and tortious interference.

Employment Discrimination and Wage & Hour Litigation

Fish & Richardson attorneys have aggressively advocated on behalf of management over a broad spectrum of employment litigation across the country, including race, gender, national origin, religion and age discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, FMLA, ADA, FLSA, and (on behalf of our public clients) First Amendment retaliation claims. In today's litigation-savvy environment, these cases require sophisticated judgment and the development of cutting-edge defensive strategies, particularly in FLSA wage & hour litigation which often involves multi-plaintiff lawsuits. Fish & Richardson's attorneys often use unique strategies to defeat multi-plaintiff claims and class certifications in the early stages of a lawsuit, saving our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. We also have a combined expertise in employment litigation that has amassed a record number of summary judgment victories in lawsuits before state and federal courts over the past several years.

Mergers, Acquisitions and Financing Transactions

Fish & Richardson employment lawyers work closely with our Corporate colleagues in conducting the employment due diligence that necessarily precedes any successful business combination or financing transaction. We routinely counsel both our "target" and "acquirer" clients regarding employment issues and/or liabilities that may hinder or diminish the value of potential deals. We assist in the orderly planning and effectuation of reductions in force that are occasioned by business combinations, and review, comment upon and where necessary, negotiate and draft, executive and key employee agreements, in order to preserve the value of corporate transactions. We also assess for our clients the legal effectiveness of post-employment restrictive covenants, change in control provisions, and other agreements that may be implicated by a business combination or other transaction. Employment lawyers with expertise in corporate transactions work to protect and preserve what are often the most valuable assets in any deal - the critical human resources.

Employment Agreements

On behalf of employer clients, Fish & Richardson employment attorneys negotiate, draft, review and comment upon all manner of employment agreements to be tendered to employees or contractors at all levels within a company. We have expertise in negotiating and drafting executive employment agreements, independent contractor agreements, consulting service agreements, proprietary information, confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements, arbitration agreements, non-solicitation and (where enforceable) non-competition agreements, and any and all other related employment agreements.

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