Practice Areas
Geoffrey Kalender Employment Law is a full-service civil rights and employment law firm located in Soho in Downtown Manhattan. We represent clients with a wide variety of employment claims, including claims of:
Discrimination, Harassment and Hostile Work Environment
Wage & Hour
FMLA Interference & FMLA Retaliation
Whistleblower and Retaliation
Employment Contracts, including Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation Agreements
Discrimination
You have the right to not be treated differently at work because of certain characteristics you have, i.e., the protected classes of which you are a member. These are characteristics like gender or sex, sexual orientation, race, national original, disability, age, national origin, pregnancy, parental or caregiver status. This is a civil right that you have, much like your freedom of speech and your right to free practice of religion. You are to be free from discrimination on the basis of your membership in a protected class.
Discrimination can mean a lot of things. It can mean being treated differently or less favorably. It can mean a failure to make reasonable accommodations for a disability or pregnancy. Employees who are victims of discrimination at work are marginalized, face unfair discipline or demotion, and are often fired.
In my career, I have represented clients with a variety of discrimination claims, and also often claims of retaliation related to the discrimination, including claims of:
Disability Discrimination
Racial Discrimination
Pregnancy Discrimination
Sex/Gender Discrimination
Sexual Harassment
Hostile Work Environment
Age Discrimination
National Origin Discrimination
Religious Discrimination
Potential clients call and say, “Something happened at work, I was treated improperly, it might be discrimination, but I can’t prove it.” People often think they need to be called a slur or suffer an abusive comment about their protected characteristic in order to have a case of discrimination or harassment. But that’s not true. I have successfully obtained compensation for clients by demonstrating that they were treated differently than their peers, or that their employer made up a reason to take action against them to cover up a discriminatory motive, or that their company maintained a discriminatory culture.
I have experience, including jury trial experience, litigating a variety of employment discrimination claims including claims of Sex/Gender Harassment and Discrimination under Title VII and the New York Human Rights Laws. I have also argued the same to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wage Theft
Wage theft is a massive problem in America. According to FBI estimates, there was $15.3 billion of value stolen in all property crimes in the USA in 2017. Yet the Economic Policy Institute estimated that there was $15 billion in minimum wage violations alone in this country in 2017. This does not account for violations of overtime laws, straight-wage theft by illegal timeclock rounding, ,
I have litigated claims that have recovered millions of dollars in unpaid wages on behalf of my clients, both in and out of court. I represent workers, individually or on a class or collective basis, in all kinds of wage theft claims including:
Employees not paid the minimum wage
Employees not paid overtime
Home health attendants who work in the homes of their elderly and/or disabled clients, and who don’t get paid for all hours they work
Tipped employees whose employers fail to turn over all tips paid or who maintain unlawful tip pools
Employees on salary but misclassified as “exempt” from overtime laws
Employees misclassified as independent contractors
Employees denied meal and rest breaks
Employees retaliated against by their employers for complaining about their pay
If you believe that your employer’s pay practices do not comply with federal or state law, please contact me for a consultation to discuss your wage and hour claim.
I represent clients in failure to pay wages, benefits, commissions, bonuses, severance, overtime, minimum wage, and all other varieties of wage and hour claims, including under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the New York Labor Law (NYLL), the Construction Workers Wage Theft Prevention Act, the Missouri Wage Law, and the Kansas Wage Law. I also advocate for employees who have been fired, demoted, or otherwise mistreated for asserting their right to proper payment.
Family and Medical Leave Act
I consider Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) litigation as an integral part of my firm’s practice. I have experience handling both FMLA Interference and FMLA Retaliation claims and suits. Qualified employees are entitled to up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave per year for a variety of reason, including to care for their own or a family member’s serious health condition or pregnancy. Further, your employer has obligations regarding when to offer you the opportunity take FMLA leave.
Whistleblower and Retaliation
In employment law, much like politics, it’s not the crime—it’s the cover-up—that gets employers busted. If you are thinking about complaining of illegal or unethical behavior in your company, please call me first. Often clients come to me after having having complained, only to find out their complaint was not protected—meaning they are not protected from retaliation by their employer. I can help you write a complaint that should provide you that protection and help to ensure you have a claim for retaliation should you be terminated in response to your complaint. I advocate for employees who have been illegally retaliated against for reporting misconduct in the workplace, including discrimination and other violations of law, including claims under NY Labor Law §740 and §741. I counsel employees considering blowing the whistle, and those who have faced adverse consequences for doing so, whether the activity was reported internally or externally.
Non-Compete, Non-Solicitation, and other Restrictive Covenants
I represents clients in breaches of contract and employment agreement, confidentiality, non-competition (non-compete), non-solicitation, non-disclosure, severance, and theft of trade secrets disputes. I also have experience representing clients in negotiating and litigating separation agreements.
“A pregnant employee, uncertain of her eligibility, would fear that some minor detail would cause their inquiry about eligibility to open the trapdoor under their feet and consign them to COBRA and the unemployment dole, precisely what occurred ... The FMLA requires supplicants to disclose their situation in order to assess eligibility. Allowing employers to terminate those supplicants if they fail muster is requiring employees to declare their utmost vulnerability and then to authorize the use of any non-qualifying event to cull the denuded worker. Suc a process offends basic notions of fairness and runs counter to the expressed goals of the FMLA.”