Labor & Employment
We are labor and employment lawyers who try labor and employment lawsuits, counsel our clients on increasingly complex workplace laws and regulations, and represent our clients before federal, state, and local labor and employment agencies, such as the NLRB, the EEOC, and OSHA.
Our litigation practice includes complex executive compensation matters, class/collective actions, trade secret/unfair competition cases, breach of fiduciary duty and executive malfeasance cases. Our vast labor and employment litigation experience is the platform from which we provide advice and counsel to help our clients solve workplace challenges covering the entire range of employment issues. We focus both on traditional labor issues–including elections, contract negotiations, arbitration, strikes and lockouts–to employment law areas, such as discrimination, disability, Family and Medical Leave Act, workplace safety, and wage and hour issues.
We practice employment law backed by the resources of a full service firm in corporate, tax, bankruptcy, intellectual property, securities, employee benefits, oil and gas, media, complex litigation, cybersecurity, and all the areas offered by Jackson Walker’s over 300 attorneys. By blending our labor/employment subject matter experience with practitioners from these areas, we offer a unique blend of labor/employment subject matter know-how to handle complex litigation cases that cross disciplines, counsel clients on high level executive compensation matters, and offer practical solutions for business issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective. We empower our clients with this multi-disciplinary knowledge and experience, in the courtroom and the boardroom.
Our clients include international Fortune 100 companies, privately held companies of all shapes and sizes in media, retail, oil and gas, alternative energy, technology, entertainment and hospitality, trucking and delivery, financial and insurance, and manufacturers. Our cases range the full spectrum from “bet the company” cases to single plaintiff labor/employment lawsuits.
We are Texas lawyers, with all of our lawyers and offices in Texas. This gives us unparalleled knowledge of the Texas legal landscape, from county to county. It also drives our national practice because our clients regularly hire us to handle matters in other states. Our unique position also results in opportunities to represent international companies that find themselves faced with significant employment matters that require the resources of a full-service firm.
Within only the last two years, we have enjoyed the following successes for our clients:
- We tried a complex executive fraud/breach of fiduciary duty case,with significant counter claims against our client, to a jury for nearly four weeks. After we tried the rest of the case to the court, we ultimately prevailed with a $1.7 M judgment against the former executive, settling the case after that on extremely favorable terms.
- We decertified a 100-plus plaintiff collective action FLSA overtime case, and then tried the first group of those plaintiffs to a jury, resulting in a settlement during jury deliberations with which our client was very pleased.
- We tried a case against a labor union that was seeking millions of dollars in allegedly unpaid benefits and won so emphatically that the union did not appeal.
- We filed a computer fraud and abuse act against a former executive of a large, publicly traded company, and brought such force to bear in the case, using a team led by our labor/employment lawyers but including bankruptcy and e-discovery lawyers, that it settled very favorably 6 weeks after we filed it, with the executive losing millions of dollars in benefits as a result of a “cause” termination.
- We decertified an FLSA collective action that would have had nearly 100 plaintiffs, leaving it with only 7 named plaintiffs, against whom we ultimately won summary judgment.
December 3, 2021
Insights
Updates on U.S. Policies Impacting Foreign Nationals and Employers
By Sang Shin | The Biden administration has recently made some important immigration policy changes which will impact both foreign national employees and their employers.
November 22, 2021
Attorney News
Jamila Brinson Serves as Vice-Chair of MLRC Employment Law Committee
Jamila M. Brinson has been appointed the Vice-Chair of the Employment Law Committee of the Media Law Resource Center.
November 16, 2021
Attorney News
‘Lawdragon’ Lists 15 Jackson Walker Attorneys Among 500 Leading Lawyers in Environmental, Energy, and Employment Law
Jackson Walker announces the selection of 15 attorneys to Lawdragon‘s list of the 500 leading practitioners in environmental and energy law and corporate employment law.
November 12, 2021
Insights
Impact of the Fifth Circuit’s Swales Decision on the FLSA Collective Action Certification Process
By Lionel Schooler
As the recent Helgason decision demonstrates, in the new age of FLSA certification after Swales, employers in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, who have to confront lawsuits by workers seeking to pursue wage claims, will now have the opportunity at the outset of a lawsuit to participate in focused discovery by which to challenge claims of “similar situations,” before a costly notice and opt-in process occurs.
November 5, 2021
Insights
Key Highlights from OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard
On November 4, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced its much-anticipated COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). This article summarizes some key highlights from the OSHA documents.
November 4, 2021
Spotlight
Jackson Walker Earns 25 National and 114 Regional “Best Law Firms” Rankings in 2022 Edition
Jackson Walker proudly announces the Firm’s inclusion in the 2022 edition of the U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” list. Rankings are based on client feedback on several criteria, including its practice groups, responsiveness, understanding of each client’s business, cost-efficiency, civility, and whether they would refer another client to the Firm. The selection process also includes the collection of peer evaluations and a final review by leading attorneys in each field.
November 3, 2021
Mentions
Scott McElhaney Discusses Ruling on LGBTQ Discrimination Claims Against Religious Businesses
A federal judge in Fort Worth ruled on October 31 that for-profit businesses with sincerely held religious beliefs can be shielded from LGBTQ discrimination claims, carving out exceptions to sexual orientation and gender identity protection previously granted by the Supreme Court. Jackson Walker partner Scott McElhaney spoke with The Dallas Morning News about the opinion.
November 2, 2021
Webinars
Join Jackson Walker for Virtual Labor & Employment Law Symposium
This year’s Fall Labor & Employment Symposium is going virtual! Join Jackson Walker and Lockton Dunning Benefits for our lunchtime sessions.
October 4, 2021
Attorney News
Jackson Walker Welcomes 2021 New Fall Associates
This year, Jackson Walker proudly welcomes 16 law school graduates to expand our Corporate & Securities, Finance & Banking, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment, Real Estate, Trial & Appellate Litigation, and Wealth Planning practices.
September 29, 2021
Insights
What to Know About the Department of Justice’s Nationwide Crackdown on Healthcare Fraud
By Laura Cordova, Erica Giese, & Daniela Mondragón
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has identified over $1 billion in fraud-related losses to government-funded healthcare programs and private insurers. In its recent announcement, the DOJ highlighted enforcement actions targeting four major categories of alleged fraud: telemedicine; COVID-19 relief funds; substance abuse treatment facilities, or “sober homes”; and illegal prescription and/or distribution of opioids.
The Labor & Employment Dispatch newsletter from Jackson Walker provides news and insights in labor and employment law.
