We employ the proactive strategies and swift responsiveness that it takes to help businesses of all sizes grow, maintain and protect a strong workforce.

Your employees are among your greatest investments. In fact, a recent Gallup Business Journal poll confirms that companies of all sizes with a strong and engaged workforce experience stronger productivity and profitability than those that don’t – even during challenging economic times. This is true whether your business is a small privately held company in growth mode, a mission-driven nonprofit organization, a health care organization with affiliates and physician partners, a higher education institution, or an established manufacturer with global operations. When it comes to protecting your investment in your workforce, minimizing risks and positioning your company for maximum productivity and profitability, the experienced employment and labor lawyers at Lathrop GPM can help you.

Our employment and labor attorneys regularly help clients:

  • Create proactive employment strategies and implement best practices and policies;
  • Ensure workers are properly classified as contract, part-time and full-time employees, and hourly or salaried employees;
  • Navigate complicated labor issues, including labor negotiations and providing union avoidance strategies;
  • Stay in compliance with the complex maze of federal, state and local employment regulations;
  • Manage immigration issues to help attract talent from other countries and avoid the immigration violations that lead to costly sanctions;
  • Respond swiftly and assertively when employment disputes arise, from defending discrimination, harassment, or wage and hour claims, to pursuing trade secret and noncompetition violations, in both formal litigation and less formal settings.

Our employment & labor attorneys represent and regularly advise businesses such as:

  • Emerging growth, privately held and established midsized companies, including working closely on an ongoing basis as employment law advisors to HR leaders with respect to hiring, discipline and termination; policies and procedures; safety compliance; training; immigration compliance and more.
  • Manufacturers, engineering firms and software and technology businesses, including litigating trade secret and confidential business information misappropriation claims, or noncompete claims.
  • Higher education institutions, including advising on issues related to promotions and tenure decisions, terminations and nonrenewals of tenured and tenure-track faculty, immigration compliance, compensation and benefits, and collective bargaining.
  • Health care providers, including structuring and enforcing noncompetition agreements within physician groups.
  • Employers in employment litigation, class action, collective action and multi-plaintiff lawsuits across the nation.
  • ESG Guidance.
  • Nonprofit entities.

The Modern Workplace blog

Our attorneys regularly provide updates on current issues in employment and labor law on the firm’s The Modern Workplace blog, which is focused on providing insightful analysis, updates and practical guidance on labor and employment legal developments affecting employers across the country.

Employment Law Alliance (ELA)

Our firm is the select member (for western Missouri, Minnesota, and Kansas) of the Employment Law Alliance, the world’s largest network of employment lawyers. It offers the most comprehensive and cost-effective way for multi-national employers to ensure legal compliance around the globe. The ELA consists of more than 3,000 employment and labor lawyers in 135 countries, working together as a “virtual” international law firm.

Experience

Lathrop GPM’s employment and labor attorneys have experience in almost every facet of employment and labor law, including:

  • Employment litigation and disputes, including defending employers in complex and class action matters
  • Employment advice, including advising employers on various personnel and legal issues, and drafting and implementing workplace policies and handbooks
  • Employee classification issues, including independent contractors

  • Employee leave and disability accommodation management (under the FMLA, ADA and other laws)
  • Executive and other employment contracts, including noncompete and confidentiality agreements, and separation/severance agreements
  • Affirmative Action programs
  • Anti-discrimination and anti-harassment guidance
  • Criminal background and other investigative searches
  • Drug testing regulations and policies
  • Intellectual property protection, including trade secrets and other confidential information
  • Internal investigations and government audits
  • Labor law, including representing already-unionized employers in collective bargaining and grievance arbitration
  • Multistate and multinational services
  • Social media considerations, including related privacy issues
  • Training, including harassment and discrimination
  • Wage-and-hour regulation compliance (FLSA)
  • Whistle-blower and retaliation exposure management, avoidance and defense
  • Workplace safety
  • Workers’ compensation
  • White collar crime

Meet the Team

Primary Contacts