Q&A with Jonathan Landesman, Partner, Labor & Employment Group
Jonathan Landesman has been a partner in the Firm’s Labor & Employment Group since 2008. We sat down with Jonathan to ask him about his experience with the Firm, his practice, and some of his more notable cases from this past year.
Q: When did you first join Cohen Seglias?
A: I joined the firm as an Associate in 2002. I had previously practiced in the labor and employment department at one of Philadelphia’s oldest and largest law firms. They had some fine attorneys there, but it had a very corporate feel. My experience at Cohen Seglias has been the exact opposite. Since my first day, the Firm has more than doubled in size, yet it still feels like a family. Frankly, I cannot imagine practicing law anywhere else.
Q: You’ve been practicing labor and employment law for almost 20 years. Why did you choose that area of the law?
A: Unlike some attorneys who spend most of their time drafting thick contracts or reviewing provisions of the tax code, I get to spend my days handling cases filled with real-life drama. It never ceases to amaze me how employees find different ways of getting into trouble at work. Invariably, many of my cases involve outrageous acts of employee misconduct such as sexual harassment, picket-line violence, drug use, misappropriating corporate funds, or falling asleep at work. And just when I think I’ve seen it all, I get another case with an entirely unique set of facts.
Q: What is the most common mistake you see businesses make with respect to their employees?
A: I have counseled our clients on the implementation of literally hundreds and hundreds of employee terminations. I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve had to advise a client to hold-off on a termination for poor job performance because of a lack of proper documentation in the employee’s personnel file. Employment discrimination cases are often won or lost based upon the quality and quantity of documentation presented by the employer. As an employer, you must to be able to establish to the EEOC or a jury that you were fair with an employee and gave him/her every opportunity to avoid termination. By properly counseling and documenting an employee’s shortcomings, the employee will either straighten out and become a valuable team member, or, you will have the documentation necessary to support the basis for the termination. If there are no written disciplinary warnings, and no written performance evaluations which accurately and honestly document the employee’s performance problems, immediate termination often is not a viable option. I always instruct our clients: document, document, document, and then document some more!
Q: Did you handle any notable cases in 2015?
A: Putting modesty aside, I was able to achieve some amazing results for our clients last year. Three cases immediately come to mind. First, I obtained a jury verdict dismissing all claims against our client, a Fortune 500 Company, in a week-long federal court trial where the plaintiff alleged that she was discriminated and retaliated against because of her race and national origin. It took the jury less than two hours to return their verdict. Second, in a case I will never forget, I obtained an injunction against one of our client’s former employees enforcing a non-compete agreement. A few months after the injunction was entered, I learned that the employee resumed working for a competitor in violation of the injunction. I went back to court, and the Judge held the former employee and our client’s competitor in contempt, ordering them to serve 45 days in jail! Needless to say, I settled the case on extremely favorable terms, providing the client with a seven-figure payment and a six-year non-compete order. Third, I successfully defended an accounting firm being sued by a former shareholder who alleged that he was owed over $2.3 million in salary and retirement payments. Not only did the judge dismiss all claims against our client, he granted our client’s counter-claim and found that the former shareholder had been overpaid.
Q: What do you like to do when you are not practicing law?
A: My wife and I went to high school together on Long Island and we just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in December. We have a 15-year-old son. When I’m not working on my cases, I try to spend as much time as I can with my family – taking weekend trips to Long Island to visit family, attending my son’s tennis tournaments, or just going out to dinner and a movie.