Employment

Our Capabilities

Our seasoned employment attorneys come from private practice, in-house positions and governmental agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board.  Together, they have litigated employment matters in dozens of jurisdictions and represented employers in hundreds of employment-related disputes, ranging from HR complaints to complex employment-related lawsuits spanning multiple forums.

Young Basile routinely advises clients on employment issues, helping clients mitigate risks before they evolve into costly disputes.

Young Basile’s employment practice area also leverages our firm’s technology acumen to assist employers with confidentiality, non-competition, trade secret, and intellectual property issues.  Our attorneys, many of whom hold PhDs, have rich technical backgrounds that enable them to more effectively handle employment disputes involving software, electronics, life sciences and other complex areas.

Track Record of Results

Young Basile takes on and wins the hard employment cases. We recently defeated the EEOC in a retaliation case in San Francisco involving a transgender employee after a six-day jury trial. When another client was faced with a nationwide boycott over false accusations of discrimination and harassment, we shut down the protests and cleared our client’s reputation by initiating rare declaratory judgment action in federal court.  We have represented employers throughout the country facing class action overtime litigation as well as investigations by state and federal wage and hour agencies. We also have a track record of success representing employers before federal labor and employment agencies, such as the EEOC or the National Labor Relations Board, as well as related state agencies.

Examples of Our Work

Discrimination, Harassment, Whistleblowing, and Retaliation
We have successfully resolved hundreds of discrimination, harassment, and whistleblowing disputes and we provide counseling to human resources professionals every day to avoid and defuse disputes before they lead to litigation.

Employment Practices Audits
Our team reviews client policies and procedures for compliance with federal, state and local laws and develops employer best practices for avoiding disputes.

Hiring, Performance Management and Termination
We guide clients through the minefield of employee recruiting, hiring, discipline and termination.

Staffing and Independent Contractors
The line between “independent contractor” and “employee” is becoming increasingly blurred, and the law may imply an employer-employee relationship where none was intended. The risks of misclassification can be catastrophic to an organization.  Our team helps clients build valuable relations with independent contractors within the boundaries of the ever-shifting legal definition of “employee.”

Investigations
We have significant experience – in working for both employers and the federal government – in conducting investigations. Employers routinely call on us to conduct harassment and other employment-related investigations when the stakes are high or the employees involved require outside investigators.

Labor Management Relations
We represent employers through the process of union campaigns, elections and collective bargaining.  Our team boasts a former attorney for the United States National Labor Relations Board.

Management Training
We provide training for managers on EEO, diversity, and harassment; fair hiring practices; union and labor relations; wage and hour classifications; investigations; and many other HR-related issues.

Policies, Procedures and Handbooks
We prepare and update policies and handbooks to keep clients’ policies and practices in step with the complex obligations placed on employers by federal and state employment laws.

Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets
We help clients structure programs and policies to protect sensitive information, conduct investigations to root out theft of that information, and pursue litigation against wrongdoers when necessary.  We also help clients to manage the risk of defending claims from their employee’s former employers.

FMLA, ADA, Workers’ Compensation
The interplay of these employment laws creates a confusing administrative maze for even the most experienced HR professionals.  We routinely guide clients through difficult employee medical leave problems.