Overview
Honigman’s Employment Litigation, Counseling and Strategic Workforce Planning group—part of our Chambers USA-ranked Labor & Employment department—assists employers in anticipating and preparing for employment-related changes when business structures and governance change. Our attorneys focus on your business needs to develop practical solutions designed to improve your business operations through strategic labor and employment advice, and when needed, litigation strategies. Our practice group offers a wide array of legal services, covering the spectrum from the formation of new businesses to the winding down of businesses, whether through a sale or a dissolution. At every stage, we partner with you to address the myriad of issues that can—and often do—arise in a workplace. In addition to responding to your specific needs, we also provide free client alerts and webinars on the ever-changing employment laws and how they may affect your business. We further offer employer-specific workplace training seminars.
Employment Counseling and Strategic Workforce Planning
Our attorneys assist clients who are buying or selling a business by helping to minimize risk and to increase the success of corporate transactions, allowing employers to execute employment practices in alignment with business strategies. We perform due diligence and consider employment issues early on in the merger, acquisition, or divestiture process to identify key opportunities and latent liabilities.
Services we provide include:
- Providing on-call strategic counseling on employment issues that arise on a daily basis in a workplace, including leave issues, requests for reasonable accommodations, employee misconduct, management of performance issues, threats of violence, and social media attacks by employees
- Directing and conducting workforce investigations, including harassment, embezzlement, and breach of computer policies
- Developing strategic business strategies for expansions, reorganizations, and, if necessary, reductions in workforce
- Drafting employment-related agreements, including employment, severance, sales representative, confidentiality/nondisclosure, and intellectual property assignment agreements
- Advising on and crafting necessary employment policies and employee handbooks
- Counseling on record retention obligations
- Analyzing status of independent contractors
- Conducting on-site workplace training
Employment Litigation
Our litigation attorneys support employers in defending all claims asserted by current or former employees or by a government agency under federal and state laws alleging wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) violations, breach of contract, employee classification (independent contractor) issues, tortious interference, whistleblower claims, and MIOSHA/OSHA violations.
Honigman’s unyielding efforts begin as early as when an employer receives communications threatening litigation—or at the time it receives a charge or claim issued by a federal or state agency—and continue through all phases of civil litigation either before an arbitrator, mediator, administrative agency, or state or federal court. Our attorneys have extensive experience before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state fair-employment agencies, including the U.S. Department of Labor, Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth. In fact, several of our attorneys are former law clerks with state and federal judges or former trial attorneys and supervisors at the EEOC.
Our employment litigators also have an impressive track record in successfully trying these claims before juries. This trial experience positions our attorneys to provide the strategic advice and planning needed to execute your strategic goals when defending these claims, whether they are brought by a single plaintiff, multiple plaintiffs, or on behalf of a class of individuals. When necessary, the same Honigman attorneys who litigated your case will continue to represent you through any appeal process.
Honigman’s litigation attorneys also represent various organizations, including property management companies, mortgage lenders, and places of public accommodation regarding compliance with federal, state, and local housing discrimination laws and accommodation/accessibility issues under various statutes. This includes both consulting and strategic planning, as well as responding to charges of discrimination filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and various state fair-housing agencies. When necessary, we defend housing discrimination and accommodation claims before administrative tribunals and in court.
