Margaret Ives Chen
Associate, Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Employment & Labor · Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Practice Area
Employment & Labor
Workplace compliance, policy, and litigation defense across the employee lifecycle.
The employment and labor group advises employers on the full employee lifecycle — hiring, classification, compensation, leave, discipline, and separation — and defends employers when disputes reach a demand letter, agency charge, or courtroom.
The group’s preventive practice is deliberately central to its work: policy audits, classification reviews, and manager training are framed as risk reduction with a measurable return, not compliance overhead. When litigation is unavoidable, the group defends wage-and-hour class and collective actions, discrimination and retaliation claims, and non-compete and trade secret disputes arising from employee departures.
For employers with a unionized workforce, the group also handles collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, and unfair labor practice proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.
“Most employment litigation is prevented, not won — the policy you wrote correctly in January is the lawsuit that never gets filed in November.”
What We Handle
- Employment agreements and executive compensation
- Wage-and-hour compliance and class action defense
- Workplace investigations
- Non-compete and trade secret protection
- Union and labor relations
Who Handles This
Attorneys in this practice group
Track Record
Related notable matters
Employment & Labor 2021
Wage-and-Hour Class Action Defense for a National Retail Employer
Defended a national retail employer in a certified wage-and-hour class action involving more than 12,000 class members, reaching a negotiated resolution before trial.
12,000+ class members
How We Help
Employment & Labor across every industry we serve
Technology
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Real Estate & Hospitality
Financial Services
Nonprofit & Education
Family-Owned Business
Employment
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Full Practice Area by Industry Reference
- Employment & Labor × Technology
- Advises on equity compensation, noncompete and trade-secret protection, and workforce reductions for technology employers.
- Employment & Labor × Healthcare
- Counsels health systems on physician employment agreements, peer-review protections, and clinician wage-and-hour compliance.
- Employment & Labor × Manufacturing
- Handles union relations, OSHA compliance, and workforce-reduction planning for manufacturing employers.
- Employment & Labor × Real Estate & Hospitality
- Advises on tipped-wage compliance, seasonal staffing, and multi-property HR policy for hospitality operators.
- Employment & Labor × Financial Services
- Counsels on incentive-compensation clawbacks, FINRA-related employment disputes, and executive separation agreements.
- Employment & Labor × Nonprofit & Education
- Advises on faculty tenure disputes, Title IX employment matters, and volunteer/staff classification for institutions.
- Employment & Labor × Family-Owned Business
- Guides family enterprises through founder succession employment terms, non-family executive hiring, and fair-pay policy.