Practice Areas

Our practice caters to individuals, unions, and select small businesses needing legal advice, counseling, and litigation representation involving an array of labor and employment issues. We have represented a wide range of individuals from diverse backgrounds and in diverse fields—from CEOs and C-Level Executives to hourly laborers. We have litigated against the largest companies in the world as well as smaller companies and even individuals.

Employment Discrimination

Employers in the United States and Texas are not allowed to make hiring, firing, or other important workplace decisions based on an employee’s age, race, gender, disability, pregnancy, religion, national origin, or in some cases sexual preference.

Workplace Harassment

Employees should be treated with dignity and cannot be subjected to verbal or physical harassment in the workplace relating to age, race, gender, disability, pregnancy, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. Employees, whether women or men, should not be verbally or physically sexually harassed in the workplace, and employers must remedy the harassment once it is known or should reasonably be known.

FLSA Overtime and Minimum Wage

Employees should be paid for their overtime. Employees should not be forced to work off the clock. Employees should be paid at least minimum wage. And employees should not be improperly classified as exempt or as an independent contractor in order to avoid the Fair Labor Standards Act or state overtime laws. While seemingly straightforward, wage and hour laws are highly complex. Our firm helps individuals understand their rights to minimum wages and overtime, and litigates on behalf of both individuals and classes of individuals when employers violate their obligations legal obligations. Our firm also helps small businesses navigate the complexities of these wage and hour laws and advises them on the proper payment of overtime.

Fraud

An intentionally false statement (or one made with reckless disregard for the truth) can induce a party to take action, to its detriment, that it otherwise would not have taken. Our firm has successfully litigated fraud claims and such claims often go hand-in-hand with breach of contract situations.

Examples of issues that we most frequently handle:

Retaliation & Whistleblower

Employers cannot terminate, demote, or otherwise penalize employees because of a good-faith complaint of discrimination or report of fraud, abuse, or other potentially unlawful activity. In Texas, employers cannot fire an employee for refusing to do an illegal action or for reporting certain activities.

Contracts

Business deals, commission agreements, non-compete and other restrictive covenants, partnership agreements, bonus agreements, employment contracts, and severance agreements are just a few of the many types of contracts found in the workplace. Our firm drafts these agreements, advises individuals and companies on their rights under such agreements, and then litigates in instances where the agreements are breached.

Defamation - Libel and Slander

False statements can damage an employee’s reputation, and impact the employee’s livelihood, and ruin a business. Our firm has successfully litigated and resolved defamation claims on behalf of individuals whose reputations are damaged by written or spoken falsehoods.

Union-Side Labor Law

Labor unions provide a collective voice to employees that allows them to have contractual rights within the workplace. Federal law also protects certain concerted workplace activities.  Our firm has a long history of representing unions in contract negotiations, grievance hearings, litigation, and other complex labor matters.