Employment Law

Ascent’s Employment Practice spans the entire employee lifecycle – from hiring to termination and everything in between.  Ascent’s attorneys are also tried, true, and highly successful employment and benefits related litigators and trial attorneys.

Advice and Counsel and Workplace Investigations

Our Employment Practice starts with advice and counsel. We firmly believe in the adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

We provide practical, digestible, and business-focused employment counsel—both nationwide and state specific—that considers each client’s risk tolerance, cultural realities, existing precedents, operational bandwidth, and budget. We partner with clients of all sizes, big and small, public and private, in various industries to design and implement employment policies and procedures, training programs and initiatives, including diversity and inclusion, that facilitate the creation of positive employee relations, strengthen compliance, employee morale and productivity, and help our clients create an efficient, gratifying, and respectful workplace built on a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

We regularly advise our clients on the following non-exhaustive list of issues:

  • Hiring and onboarding strategic guidance

  • Background checks – Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), state law guidance and restrictions, EEOC guidance, conviction/arrest record restrictions

  • Wage and hour – Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state laws and regulations

  • Pay equity – internal pay equity audits and compensation analyses under the attorney-client privilege

  • Federal government contractor compliance – affirmative action plans and OFCCP audit defense

  • Workplace investigations and related guidance

  • Reductions-in-force, layoffs, and furloughs – WARN notice obligations, statistical adverse impact analyses, and compliant severance programs and agreements

  • Restrictive covenants – strategic drafting of non-compete, non-solicitation, and other trade secret protection agreements, enforcement assessments, and enforcement litigation

  • Navigating leave of absence challenges – FMLA, workers’ compensation, and ADA leave-related accommodations

  • Job-related accommodations and ADA interactive process

  • ADA accessibility and public accommodations

  • Paid sick leave laws and PTO obligations

  • Workplace violence-related policies and procedures, trainings, and emergency response protocols

Employment Litigation

When it comes to employment-related litigation, the best lawsuit is the one never filed – hence our significant focus on the advice and counsel side of our relationship with our clients. When litigation is unavoidable, however, we put our many years of experience to work to defend employers in virtually every type of judicial, administrative, and arbitral forum, including federal and state court, administrative hearings, arbitrations, and NLRB proceedings. Our team regularly handles disputes ranging from thorny single-plaintiff cases to bet-the-company class actions with equal effectiveness and efficiency. Our approach is guided by:

  • Early evaluation of the merits and corresponding risks of the claim.

  • Consideration of early resolution where justified.

  • Focus on efficiency and cost control.

  • Partnering with clients to ensure effective communication and coordination of all key decisions.

  • Post-case analysis to identify “lessons learned” and improve go-forward employment processes and practices.

On the administrative side, Ascent’s lawyers regularly practice before virtually all types of federal and state agencies.  In the courtroom, we are known for our successes in defending class and collective action claims in state and federal court, EEOC and class action systemic discrimination cases, and cases related to most federal and state employment laws (ADA, Title VII, Title IX, the Equal Pay Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, retaliation, whistleblowing, and discrimination). We also aggressively litigate non-compete and restrictive covenant matters and are frequently called on to conduct highly sensitive workplace investigations.

Bottom line – if it is necessary to protect our clients’ interests through trial, we have the proven skill and experience to do so.