With significant expertise and experience in many facets of the law, Howard provides clients with extraordinarily skilled counseling and advocacy. Howard primarily counsels employers in both the public and private sectors on issues ranging from collective bargaining, labor negotiations, personnel consulting and training, labor arbitrations and mediation, to all aspects of administrative and judicial proceedings, including injunctive relief, NLRB unfair labor practice actions and civil rights administrative and judicial actions.
Howard leads collective bargaining negotiations for employers, provides support and counseling to human resources personnel, meets with and conducts training for employees concerning labor and employment issues and reviews employment relations handbooks and manuals. Howard also litigates disputes regarding all aspects of labor and employment law, including civil rights claims, wage and hour disputes, issues arising under the Family and Medical Leave Act and related states and federal discrimination laws.
Howard has successfully defended multiple donning and doffing (wage and hour/overtime) suits before District Courts, Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court of the United States, and has argued and established significant defenses used by employers in many industries.
Howard has achieved significant and numerous successes in complex commercial litigation matters involving a wide array of business disputes ranging from civil rights to RICO in federal and state courts throughout the country on behalf of clients in many industries, as well as multiple shareholder disputes. Howard’s clients include Keystone Foods LLC, Reading Anthracite Company, Philadelphia Health Care Trust, The Board of Directors of City Trusts, and Penn Terminals.
Howard also regularly consults with clients on many business issues, including mergers and acquisitions, purchase of assets, and general corporate needs, especially but not limited to employment related matters.
Representative Experience
- Successfully defended large international employer, with multiple US Plants against wage and hour and donning and doffing violations through the Supreme Court.
- Established defenses to wage and hour claims which have been adopted by many employers throughout the United States.
- Successful collective bargaining for large international corporation in all facets of its business including labor negotiations with multiple Unions at multiple facilities.
- Obtained injunctions against union picketing in multiple counties throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, including the City of Philadelphia.
- Defended large poultry company, with multiple vertically integrated facilities, against contract breach and fraud claims by multiple breeder and broiler growers and obtained summary judgment on all claims which were affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
- Defended claims of discrimination of all types before state and federal administrative agencies, as well as courts throughout the United States.
- Managed employer response to union organizing campaigns on both the state and federal level for multiple clients.