Labor and Employment

Pragmatic Counsel. Strategic Foresight. Employer Defense.

Jones & Keller’s Denver-based employment law attorneys advise and defend employers across Colorado and nationwide, providing full-service legal counsel on workplace compliance, investigations, and employment disputes. Our Employment Group delivers pragmatic, business-minded solutions to employers navigating the complexities of today’s workplace. We combine deep subject-matter expertise with strategic foresight, helping clients prevent disputes, resolve conflicts, and protect their workforce. Whether counseling on everyday workplace issues, defending complex litigation, or supporting transformative deals, we deliver clarity and confidence in the most challenging employment law environments.

We help employers proactively manage workforce risk using data-driven insights and technology-supported compliance systems. Our employment attorneys are the first call for clients facing urgent employment challenges and have deep experience in crisis management and navigating high‑stakes situations with precision and calm.

Employment Law Compliance and Counseling
We partner with businesses to anticipate challenges before they arise. Our attorneys provide day-to-day counseling that balances compliance with business realities, ensuring organizations can thrive while minimizing risk.

Drafting and tailoring employment agreements, handbooks, and policies to federal and state law.
Advising on trade secrets, restrictive covenants, and confidentiality protections.
Guiding employers through performance management, wage/hour compliance, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower, and retaliation issues.
Counseling on hiring, termination, reductions in force, and workplace investigations.
Leading outside investigations into employee allegations of unlawful conduct.
Undertaking privileged audits of employment practices.
Developing compensation and benefits strategies that align with business objectives.

Our approach is proactive, practical, and always aligned with client goals.

Employment Litigation & Dispute Resolution
When disputes arise, our team is trusted to defend employers in high-stakes matters across jurisdictions. We bring decades of courtroom and arbitration experience to every case, with a proven track record representing clients in jurisdictions nationwide.

Defending claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination.
Executive transitions.
Litigating wage and hour disputes and misclassification claims.
Handling restrictive covenant enforcement and trade secret litigation.
Representing employers in OSHA citations, NLRA retaliation claims, and administrative proceedings.
Resolving disputes through arbitration, mediation, and negotiated settlements.

Transactional & Deal Support
Employment issues often define the success of corporate transactions. Our group provides employment-related due diligence and deal support that ensures smooth transitions and protects enterprise value.

Conducting employment due diligence in mergers and acquisitions.
Advising on immigration compliance and workforce integration.
Structuring executive compensation, incentive plans, and director arrangements.
Navigating IRC §409A, golden parachute, and change-of-control compensation issues.
Drafting and negotiating employment-related provisions in transactional documents.

We work seamlessly with corporate deal teams to identify risks, craft solutions, and deliver employment strategies that enhance transaction outcomes.

Read Jones & Keller’s articles on Employment Law.

our services include:

Advice and Counseling

AI and Technology

Arbitration

Audit Services

Background Checks

Class & Collective Actions

Commercial Litigation

Contractors, Staffing and Contingent Workers

Corporate Counseling & Governance

Discrimination and Harassment

Drugs and Alcohol

eDiscovery & Information Governance

Executive Compensation

Jones & Keller provides its clients with an integrated approach to the diverse employee benefits needs of its clients by combining expertise in traditional employee benefits and executive compensation with extensive experience in corporate tax planning, employment benefits litigation and insurance regulation and policy.

We assist our clients in all aspects of planning and implementation of incentive compensation programs, benefits plans, and tax qualified and non-qualified plans. We provide advice to employers on compensation and benefit plans for employees, as well as plans or arrangements for executives, directors and key personnel. We help our clients deal with increasingly complex benefits issues such as tax implications of deferred compensation (IRC §409A), “Golden Parachute” issues surrounding executive compensation in change-of-control transactions, design, amendment and termination of tax-qualified and non-qualified plans and incentive compensation plans for corporations and limited liability companies. We also assist start-ups and rapidly growing companies in designing compensation and stock incentive plans that help them recruit and retain key personnel and meet the demands of venture capitalists and mezzanine financiers.

We help boards of directors, compensation committees, management committees and outside accountants to craft executive compensation plans that meet the needs of executives, shareholders and outside directors. We also assist boards of directors in development of director compensation plans.

We help our clients to choose from a variety of compensation options, such as:

Incentive and performance compensation plans
Equity-based compensation programs
Phantom equity and profits-based compensation plans
Deferred compensation arrangements

We also advise clients involved in mergers and acquisitions regarding the interaction and integration of qualified plans of the various parties.

Government Contracting

Handbooks and Policies

Inclusion, Equity and Diversity

Labor Management Relations

Leave and Accommodation

Litigation and Trial

Jones & Keller employment litigators defend employers, managers, and executives against federal and state claims made by employees regarding alleged discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and breach of contract, as well as restrictive covenant enforcement issues and interference with concerted protected activity. Our experienced trial and arbitration lawyers vigorously defend against such claims by a current or former employee to achieve the best resolution possible—whether through settlement, arbitration, or litigation.

Privacy and Data Security

Management or Board Advice and Counsel

Jones & Keller helps prevent liability by making recommendations and preparing transitional documents for terminations, resignations, reductions-in-force, layoffs, executive hiring and terminations, handbooks and policies; and restrictive covenants, including non-competes, non-solicitation, and trade secret protection. We help our clients establish and implement programs and policies to manage the risk of employment actions, develop compensation plans to meet business objectives, and manage outsource and independent contractor relationships. Jones & Keller lawyers have extensive hands-on knowledge of employment issues facing businesses and public sector clients today, derived from their experience in dealing with day-to-day employment issues as general counsel and executive officers of various businesses.

Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets

Wage & Hour Compliance and Representation

Our attorneys represent employers in potential and actual claims of alleged wage and hour violations and misclassifications under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state wage acts in federal and state courts as well as under audit by the U.S. Department of Labor/Wage and Hour Division and state department of labor. Counseling clients on prevention measures is part of our practice to reduce the risk of liability from misclassifying exempt and non-exempt employees and independent contractors.

Whistleblowing, Compliance and Investigations

Workplace Safety and Environment

Clients turn to Jones & Keller for guidance when issued a citation by the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration (OSHA) or state OSHA programs and in disputes over general employment contract matters. We also defend employers against claims of retaliation under the National Labor Relationship Act. Prevention measures include counseling clients on workplace safety issues as well as updating employer safety manuals.

Workplace Violence Prevention and Crisis Response

Labor and Employment

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