Labor & Employment

Our Labor & Employment group provides the full range of legal counsel to employers nationwide in dealing with employee related issues. We represent publicly and privately held companies; not-for-profit organizations; financial services firms; governmental entities; health care providers; law firms and other professional service organizations; and insurance, manufacturing, real estate and development, and retail businesses.

Much of our practice is devoted to proactive counseling on employment and labor law matters, including affirmative action, discipline and discharge, human resources policies and practices, wage and hour audits and other matters, workplace safety, and managing multijurisdictional employment laws. We also draft and review employment, separation and non-competition agreements, employee handbooks, and employer policies and procedures.

Employee Benefits
Our employee benefits attorneys counsel clients on complex or adversarial employee benefits problems. We are particularly skilled at assisting businesses with:

• ESOPs
• executive compensation and employment agreements
• health and welfare plans
• qualified retirement plans
• other employee benefits

We are equally adept at representing commercial and non-profit businesses, individuals and local governmental entities in employee benefits-related litigation and before administrative agencies.

Employment Litigation
Our employment attorneys have extensive experience in defending employers in employment law litigation involving claims brought under:

• federal and state wage and hour laws
• Title VII
• the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
• the Americans with Disabilities Act
• other federal, state and local anti-discrimination legislation (including complex claims brought by individuals or as class actions)

We defend clients in multiple forums including federal, state or municipal agencies, and in federal and state trial and appellate courts. Our employment attorneys skillfully represent employers through all phases of litigation. One Hinshaw partner is regularly engaged by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to speak before and present educational seminars to employers as part of the EEOC's technical compliance initiative. Another is co-author of the BNA book, "Employment Termination," a valuable research tool used by many law firms and law schools.

Employers' Risk
We have a nationwide team of attorneys who have significant experience in defending self-insured employers in workers' compensation matters, including:

• providing comprehensive risk management programs and safety related legal advice,
• counseling clients on all areas of workers' compensation, including exposure claims and complex compensability disputes,
• handling the most complex and high-exposure workers' compensation, class action and third-party liability cases involving fatalities, catastrophic injuries and toxic tort exposures.

Immigration
We offer advice and representation in the full range of immigration matters that employers and workers respectively face. Our labor and employment lawyers, collaborating closely with colleagues in the firm whose expertise lies in working with specific industries, such as banking, construction, insurance and real estate, provide tailored immigration law related solutions that meet each client's unique needs.

Specifically, our immigration attorneys represent employers and workers in obtaining temporary employment authorization through nonimmigrant visa petitions, followed by permanent residency and citizenship proceedings throughout the United States.

We also provide employers with day-to-day counseling on immigration compliance matters, including:

• internal audits,
• I-9 employment verification procedures,
• responses to audits and raids conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security and many other activities.

Labor Relations & Collective Bargaining
Several Hinshaw attorneys, one of whom has been named as one of the top 100 labor attorneys in America by the Labor Relations Institute, devote much of their practices to labor law issues. We regularly represent employers in matters before the National Labor Relations Board, in federal mediation and in arbitration. Working closely with our clients, we regularly:

• respond to union organizing drives and election campaigns;
• represent employers in secondary boycott issues;
• advise clients regarding strikes, picket line issues and violence; and
• represent management in all phases of collective bargaining negotiations.

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