Practice Profile
Employment
The right legal partner can help structure labour and employment matters so that companies can concentrate on business. The Cassels Brock Employment Group has experience in all aspects of employment law, from recruitment to termination and all stages in between.
Our clients, representing a range of public and private organizations operating locally, nationally and globally, are senior executives, business owners and other employers who seek our strategic advice to plan for their human resources needs, to avoid or reduce liability and to access our opinions on particular points of law. They also retain us to represent them in court and before administrative tribunals to advance and protect their positions.
Our employment law services include:
- Drafting executive employment and termination agreements
- Advising employers about union organizing drives and appearing on behalf of employers at the Ontario and Canada Labour Relations Boards and at grievance arbitrations
- Drafting, reviewing and updating employment policies and employee manuals
- Negotiating and drafting individual severance packages
- Assessing liability and providing cost-effective advice to employers in the event of major downsizing or plant closure
- Providing advice to employers in dealing effectively with human rights matters, including sexual harassment complaints and establishment of due diligence programs
- Providing advice to clients in the area of pensions and benefits, workers’ compensation, occupational health and safety, and pay equity
- Negotiating collective agreements
- Acting for clients at all stages of the litigation process in court and before boards and tribunals
Our employment lawyers have particular expertise in:
- Wrongful dismissal
- Labour relations
- Executive employment agreements
- Executive compensation & termination packages
- Independent contractor vs. employee and other tax-related employment issues
- Major restructurings
- Pensions and benefits
- Employment standards
- Human rights
- Sexual harassment
- Representation of employers and officers in claims of sexual abuse
- Pay equity
- Workers' compensation
- Occupational health and safety
- Insurance coverage involving employment claims
- Obligations and proceedings involving departing employees
Our employment lawyers have provided labour law advice in a number of transactions or contracts, including:
- Representing a national chain of fitness clubs facing a union certification bid, and advising the company on a pre-vote communications strategy with its employees, which resulted in not one employee voting in favour of the union
- Acting for the Ontario employees of a foreign-owned airline shutting down operations in Ontario, and negotiating settlements in all cases amounting to several times the initial offer made by the corporation
- Acting for a major Canadian retailer, which had sold its business to a competitor, and structuring the timing of the termination of employees who were not to be transferred, thereby saving the client more than $1 million in termination costs
- Acting for another major retailer in a case before the Ontario Human Rights Commission -- in which the complainant sought provision of advertising and other print materials in a form accessible to visually impaired customers -- and negotiating a settlement by implementing web-based technologies
- Representing two employees of an Ontario corporation and a related American corporation with offices in the southern United States, and negotiating a mutually acceptable severance package
- Under NAFTA, obtaining clearance within 24 hours for an American consultant who had been experiencing difficulties crossing the border to conduct business with a Canadian company