A founding partner of Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, Laurent is chair of the Firm’s Labor and Employment Practice and co-chair of the Restrictive Covenant Practice.

Laurent works closely with clients to understand their short-term legal needs and long-term business objectives and is passionate about using the law and creativity to achieve their goals.

Laurent can go toe-to-toe with any employment or labor law issue to reach the best outcome for his clients. Others are trying to think outside the box. With Laurent, there is no box. Laurent guides clients in:

• Employment:

Compliance and Counseling: Laurent collaborates with employers to address compliance with the multitude of employment laws that apply to businesses, counsels clients on assessing potential risks, and deploys strategic litigation risk avoidance techniques. He counsels on responding to employee complaints, and disciplining and discharging when necessary, including drafting and executing severance and release agreements/RIFs. With broad experience and knowledge of federal, state, and local laws, Laurent conducts compliant harassment and discrimination internal investigations for employers and provides crisis management on particularly sensitive situations.

Litigation: Recognizing that awareness, prevention, compliance, and strategic intervention are keys to avoiding litigation, sometimes litigation cannot be avoided. Laurent defends employers against those claims on issues such as harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. An experienced and skilled litigator, Laurent argues appeals, tries cases, and engages in all aspects of pre-trial court proceedings. He regularly appears in federal and state courts, and administrative agencies including the EEOC, NYS Division of Human Rights, and the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

• Wage and Hour: Laurent provides full guidance and assessment of existing practices, including preventative and corrective compliance counseling. Laurent counsels employers through wage and hour litigations, Department of Labor investigations, and audits on critical issues such as individual liability, minimum wage and overtime violations, misclassification of employees and independent contractors, exempt versus non-exempt employees, wage notices/wage statements, spread of hours, tipped employees, uniform allowances, and superintendent apartment/utilities.
• Union Issues: Laurent represents employers on the varied issues that arise with labor unions. He conducts collective bargaining negotiations, counsels and resolves issues involving contract grievances, and litigates before the National Labor Relations Board. Additionally, Laurent addresses the special union concerns that arise real estate purchases/sales. His labor law experience includes the representation of real estate owners, managing agents, and co-op/condo boards in the New York metropolitan area, involving unions such as SEIU Local 32BJ, Local 713 I.B.O.T.U., the NY Hotel Trades Council, UFCW Local 2013, Local 670 R.W.D.S.U., and Teamsters Local 282 and UFCW Local 888, among others.
• Non-Competes/Restrictive Covenants: Laurent conducts pre-hire risk assessment and pre-separation risk assessment counseling for employers on employee mobility matters. He prepares enforceable restrictive covenant agreements, and when a dispute arises, litigates enforcement, and defense of these agreements, including unfair competition and trade secret matters. Additionally, Laurent counsels on theft and misuse of confidential information.