McAfee & Taft’s Labor and Employment Group is one of the largest of its kind in the region and represents management exclusively in all areas of labor and employment law.

Leaders in Creating Legal Solutions for Employers
While a majority of our clients are concentrated in the Southwest, we also represent a number of larger clients on a national level. The practice group’s widely recognized expertise, combined with the relatively low business costs in Oklahoma, makes McAfee & Taft the easy choice for regional and national representation in labor and employment matters. In recent years, our attorneys have been lead counsel in significant employment litigation in Texas, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, California and Washington.

Although McAfee & Taft represents many Fortune 500 companies, our clientele includes organizations of all types and sizes, including self-employed individuals, small family-owned businesses, professional employer organizations, minority-owned businesses, municipalities of all sizes, public and private educational organizations, and religious and charitable organizations. Our attorneys provide every client with the same excellent quality of service and responsiveness. It has been the Firm’s good experience that many smaller clients have grown significantly over the years, and because they have always received consistently excellent representation, we have developed long-term professional relationships.

Several of our labor and employment attorneys are listed in nationally-recognized directories, including The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA Guide to America's Leading Lawyers for Business and Oklahoma Super Lawyers. Our group also includes several nationally-recognized speakers who routinely address both attorney conferences and management seminars. For example, our attorneys have addressed national conferences on the defense of disability discrimination claims and the prevention of violence in the workplace. Our lawyers also collaboratively authored a treatise on age discrimination in the workplace which the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation published in 1999. Our writing credits include white papers and scholarly articles for the SHRM newsletter, law reviews and other professional publications.

McAfee & Taft's Labor and Employment Group serves as the editor of the Oklahoma Employment Law Letter, a monthly review of new court decisions, regulations and laws that affect state employers. The firm is also the exclusive Oklahoma representative to the Employers Counsel Network, a nationwide affiliation of leading law firms representing employers.

The firm also holds the distinction of being the only Oklahoma firm selected for membership in the National Workers' Compensation Defense Network, a comprehensive network of independent law firms throughout the United States and Canada which provides employers with the highest quality representation in workers' compensation and related employer liability fields.

Our Straightforward Approach to Problem Solving Gets Results
The Labor and Employment Group has a straightforward approach to problem solving. The first goal is to avoid disputes and litigation through preventive practices, which includes knowing the client’s business, and ongoing consultation between practice group members and client representatives. We understand that the best way to avoid legal problems is to educate the right personnel within the client’s operation on a continuing basis. As a result, many of our attorneys have become day-to-day legal and business advisors for Firm clients.

Active involvement with clients enables our attorneys to forecast potential problems and help prevent them from happening. It also allows us to assist clients in crafting efficient, long-range human resource plans. This approach to the practice of law results in actual savings in clients’ legal costs. It also results in long-term professional relationships, many of which are measured by decades rather than mere months or years.

The Labor and Employment Group also provides complimentary client seminars and client updates on new developments, as well as fixed-fee on-site training which provides clients with affordable educational and compliance measures.

In the event of an employment-related dispute or litigation, Labor and Employment Group members are experienced at negotiating with individuals, private companies and government agencies. Our attorneys also are skilled litigators in state and federal courts and before governmental agencies. McAfee & Taft’s approach to litigation is practical and efficient. In short, the paramount goal is to successfully resolve cases as quickly and inexpensively as possible. This often is achieved by aggressive motion practice or by forcing favorable settlement terms before legal costs mount. If a case is to be tried, however, McAfee & Taft has a well-deserved reputation in the courts and with the plaintiffs’ bar for thorough preparation and outstanding litigation skills.

The list of areas of labor and employment law include: