As we approach the 12th anniversary of the founding of our Firm, it is a perfect time to reflect on our mission and how we have evolved to meet the needs of our many diverse and loyal clients.
My Career
My personal career took an unconventional route. Instead of beginning my career at a law firm my early positions were at large corporations. I worked with many attorneys – both inside and outside counsel. I observed their work styles, how they analyzed information and legal risks, articulated their opinions, and became trusted advisors to their clients. And I always wanted to shape my counsel to reflect the best practices of the legal practitioners I had encountered.
As a former Human Resources executive and in-house employment attorney at established national and international corporations, I was ready to translate the practical application of legal theories and practices I had learned on to a broader stage.
Our Services
Our Firm began its history by offering HR consulting and legal work, with an emphasis on the preventive. Our services evolved over time to respond to the needs of our clients.
We provide solutions to daily employee relations issues that often prove so challenging to our clients. These issues include employee discipline, workplace harassment, performance management, privacy, disability and compensation.
We offer our clients training sessions on anti-harassment, compliance and management skills. Our extensive employment practices audit evaluates where our clients require attention and remediation. Our expansive client base includes not-for-profit institutions, such as Charter and private schools. In 2006 the HR consulting services we had incubated branched off into a separate corporation and we transformed into a workplace law firm. Our services were expanded to include federal court litigation and union avoidance, and we took on the rapidly increasing area of Department of Labor investigations and audits.
We became known for our thorough yet sensitive internal investigations of discrimination allegations at organizations of all sizes. We leveraged our Compliance Officer experience developed at large corporations and designed Corporate Codes of Conduct for clients. And we showcased our knowledge of employment agreements for senior executives by delivering ongoing workshops to executives in transition.
Our Value Proposition
Our mission has always been to deliver cost effective legal services on workplace issues in a boutique setting that places a premium on personalized service. As a former executive, I highly value delivering our counsel in a practical manner that resonates with our clients’ business needs and impacts positively on their bottom line. We pride ourselves on our ability to address these issues in a cost-effective way.
A dramatic change has occurred in our regulatory world. The reach of government enforcement of growing workplace laws has extended to clients of all shapes and sizes. There is a real legal need for every business owner to maintain compliance knowledge with the constantly evolving regulatory landscape.
We design employee handbooks, HR policies and forms to provide the much needed infrastructure for our clients’ human resources programs. We take pleasure in sharing our information with our clients so that they can handle future situations. And we provide ongoing advice when situations warrant our counsel.
The Future
As we plan for 2015, we see many challenges ahead for our clients: growing rights for employees on disability, including pregnancy…more protections for employee communications made in the social media context…stricter enforcement on independent contractor classifications…more mandated sick leave laws…mainstreaming workers who, by the President’s executive actions on immigration, will be recognized as being legally able to work.
As workplace issues and employee protections increase in velocity and complexity, we remain true to our original mission: providing cost-effective personalized service and practical application of our executive-level experience to all matters. And we owe our success to our clients who have given us the opportunity to demonstrate the value of our services.