McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Every employment decision shapes how your workforce performs – impacting your culture, reputation, and revenue. Our employment lawyers help your business move forward by managing risk across the employee life cycle – from hiring and onboarding to performance management, retention, and separation.

We go beyond reactive advice by partnering with you to anticipate risk. By taking the time to understand your business and your industry, we stay attuned to emerging workplace trends. Our employment lawyers help you address issues early, reducing the likelihood of disputes or regulatory scrutiny that can be costly and disruptive to your operations.

We partner with you to develop workplace policies that limit legal exposure and strengthen culture, help you comply with ever-evolving laws and regulations around the world, and negotiate contracts designed to protect your interests and align incentives across your organization.

To support global workforces, our employment lawyers work together seamlessly from offices worldwide, providing coordinated, cross-border guidance. We advise on issues across the full spectrum of employment law – from day-to-day advice and policy development to C-suite and board advisory, as well as bet-the-company litigation.

When high-stakes disputes arise, we assemble teams with the specific experience required to litigate the claims at issue – including highly specialized and complex matters. This approach has contributed to our strong track record in labor and employment litigation.

Our employment practice supports your organization at every stage of growth. We provide guidance that is grounded in how your business operates, partnering with you to mitigate workforce risk so you can drive your business forward.

Union elections and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigations are spiking and are at historic levels. Labor unions are deploying new tactics to challenge business plans and brand reputations for unionized and non-unionized companies across industries.

Our next-gen, diverse labor team advises and represents clients across the United States and Europe. We serve as trusted counsel in high-stakes matters, including union elections; collective bargaining; NLRB investigations, trials and appeals; labor arbitrations; and legislative drafting. We regularly advise investors and corporations on strategic labor issues in transactions, integrations and reorganizations.

We provide cross-disciplinary advising and work seamlessly with our leading partners in employee benefits, antitrust, tax, corporate and healthcare practices, among others. Our team’s approach to labor representation is strategic, business-focused and swift.

The team at McDermott Will & Schulte is highly skilled at advising on employment law topics and complex personnel issues.
– Client Testimonial in Chambers USA

Proactively addressing diversity, gender, and pay equity is a top priority for employers. You look to counsel to be on the pulse of these issues and to help develop plans that are ahead of the curve and protect your organization’s people, culture, and reputation.

Our global employment lawyers counsel industry-leading public and private companies, boards of directors, and senior executives on employment discrimination, internal investigations, and aligning advice with your business objectives. Our approach goes beyond rote legal recitation to provide comprehensive and business-oriented solutions for protecting the organization’s market position and minimizing legal liability, financial loss, and reputational damage.

Bringing decades of management-side experience in pay equity, discrimination, and harassment lawsuits, our employment lawyers combine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) best practices with deep knowledge of anti-discrimination laws to proactively identify concerns within the organization and deliver customized solutions.

If faced with an employment discrimination lawsuit, our litigators have a proven track record of success, from negotiating early settlements that minimize impact to winning favorable verdicts in arbitration and in state and federal courts.

Pay Equity

We help global employers comply with the evolving legal frameworks that govern pay equity. Through confidential pay studies in partnership with trusted experts, our lawyers identify and address pay discrepancies based on gender, race, ethnicity, or other factors before challenges arise.

Our employment and executive compensation teams work together to analyze sector-specific pay data, compensation structures, pay equity laws, and board fiduciary responsibilities to help you protect your business. We partner with organizations to:

• Administer a pay study under attorney-client privilege
• Assess pay disparities
• Review policies and pipeline initiatives to identify root causes
• Develop an action plan based on findings – either by implementing policy, pipeline, culture, and other changes compliant with state and federal requirements, or redesigning compensation structures for compliance, impact, and competitive edge
• Conduct assessments on a global basis considering relevant foreign pay equity laws and reporting requirements

Harassment & Employment Discrimination

We take a proactive approach to help our clients navigate sensitive allegations of workplace harassment and discrimination. Such allegations are becoming increasingly complex to manage, with the rise of such claims being posted directly to social media.

To prevent allegations from arising, our lawyers partner with your in-house legal and human resources teams to evaluate conduct, update policies, provide interactive trainings, and foster a culture of compliance. We work closely with your organization to:

• Conduct harassment prevention training programs for employees across all levels of your organization, as well as offer one-on-one executive leadership training for members of your C-suite and board
• Ensure compliance with state and federal regulations, including the deployment of confidential reporting systems
• Identify potential risks and make informed decisions about allocating compliance resources

If you are faced with a high-stakes harassment or discrimination claim, we work with your in-house teams to respond swiftly and take decisive action, including measures to:

• Conduct an extensive internal investigation and deliver recommendations for corrective action
• Form a special committee of the board to provide necessary independence to the process
• Counsel the board on disclosure obligations to shareholders, regulators, and other stakeholders to mitigate risk for shareholder derivative litigation
• Deploy a crisis management plan, including an appropriate public statement