Employment Law

EMPLOYMENT LAW

Human Resources and corporate culture matters to every employee and every employer looking to take care of its employees. Best practices, creative strategies, laudable ethics, prudent risk management, and swift dispute resolution are the warp and woofs of our employment law team.  Through our collaborative approach to providing practical, hands-on counsel, we work with employers to develop a well-defined, legally supported, inclusive and positive corporate culture that serves as the glue that binds the organization and its employees. Our experience has shown us that no client has ever regretted shifting its focus to a compliant, elevating corporate culture.

With a unique combination of counseling and litigation capabilities, Jimerson Birr’s employment law team effectively guides clients through innumerable regulatory and litigation risks in a practical and cost-effective manner. Our team routinely advises human resources departments, operations management, and executives on how to handle personnel matters in compliance with federal, state, and local employment related laws, including with matters pertaining to hiring, termination, job training, drug testing, background checks, non-discrimination, employee discipline, reductions in force, payment/provision of wages and benefits, and the investigation and resolution of employee complaints. We also assist clients in the drafting of employment-related documents, including employee handbooks, performance evaluations, job descriptions, disciplinary action forms, employment agreements, and non-compete and other restrictive covenant agreements. We are well aware that our clients did not get into business to spend all  of their productive hours poring over regularly changing regulations, stressing about the impact of a court ruling on their bottom line, or filtering through conflicting laws for purposes of giving employee instruction. Fortunately, we did.

Successfully run human resources departments are those that focus on compliance and dispute prevention. Our attorneys offer comprehensive employment law and compliance counsel, and associated management training to employers. Whether it is a simple legal checkup, a refresher training session, or a full employment practices review, our employment law team helps clients sleep better at night knowing they are doing the right thing. Not only does legal compliance and ethical conduct help protect companies from risk and liability exposure, but such agendas also foster constructive, flourishing, and alluring corporate cultures where everyone working for the company is motivated to do their best. Our compliance and management training programs help our clients rest easier knowing that they are doing what the law requires and still doing right by their employees.

With a ubiquitous approach to compliance, employers can curtail their risk of litigation. However, when conflicts cannot be avoided, companies need knowledgeable, business-minded litigators to successfully defend their interests in court. We can help. Jimerson Birr’s employment litigators represent business clients in lawsuits (in court as well as arbitration), administrative proceedings, and other disputes relating to a broad spectrum of labor and employment law issues, including, without limitation, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, interference with leave of absence protections, unpaid wages, independent contractor misclassification, violations of non-compete agreements, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair labor practice charges, and union grievances. We get results for clients and are relentless in our approach to delivering client defined value.

Jimerson Birr’s employment lawyers can assist business clients with respect to federal, state, and local labor and employment laws or services, such as: 

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) compliance, training or litigation
• The Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) compliance, training or litigation
• State and local employment law compliance, training or litigation
• Management training and human resources policy development
• Discrimination and sexual harassment compliance, awareness and training
• Executive compensation and employee benefits
• Pension, retirement, and profit-sharing plans
• Health and welfare benefit plans
• Fringe benefit programs
• Personnel policies and handbooks
• Severance agreements
• Affirmative Action compliance and OFCCP defense
• Background checks & FCRA litigation
• Collective bargaining agreements and disputes
• Immigration law
• Wage, hour and overtime audits and litigation
• Whistleblower claims & retaliation prevention
• Workplace safety, OSHA and CDC compliance
• Workplace investigations
• Developing strategies for employment documentation, managing performance and productivity, and risk management with employee terminations
• Wrongful termination
• Employee and company social media policies
• Facility closing and relocations
• Significant reductions in forces
• Trade secret protection
• Drafting, implementing or enforcing non-compete or non-solicitation agreements
• Drafting, implementing or enforcing confidentiality and/or non-disclosure agreements
• Tortious interference with business or contractual relationships
• Employee, consumer and financial data privacy

Jimerson Birr is a premier law firm with a market-leading employment law practice that is tailored to the nuances of the industries we serve. Our teams have a global perspective and strong Florida roots. Our clients look to us to bring a distinctively high degree of quality, passion and creativity to resolve employment law challenges effectively and cost efficiently.

We’re honored to work with some of the world’s most accomplished organizations and the leaders who drive them. We know that on any given day our clients are confronting competition, corporate advancement, risk management, process and product innovation, resource allocation, efficiency stewardship and talent oversight problems; some days all the above. When our clients place employment law matters with us, they enlist sets of broad shoulders that carry their burdens for them so that they no longer feel their weight. This deep business partnership will give us both an opportunity to be at our best.

We draw on the strength of our character and talents to deliver the best of our firm to every client through true collaboration. While there’s a bevy of well-heeled law firms willing to rack up billable hours helping you push paper and check corporate boxes, we are not one of those unfit and hamstrung chop-shops. We don’t confuse effort with results, and we focus on the immutable, allied goals at all times. Partnership with Jimerson Birr on employment law matters means that you are not looking in any direction but ahead.