Nathan Whatley represents management in all phases of litigation before federal and state courts, regulatory and administrative agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and in arbitration matters. He also handles litigation matters involving the enforcement of non-competition and confidentiality agreements, breach of employment contracts, handbook and personnel policy violations, wage and hour disputes, and other issues arising out of employer/employee relationships.
Nathan has litigated in Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, California, South Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Kansas and Missouri.
Nathan also routinely counsels clients in connection with employee discipline, terminations and reductions in force; wage and hour issues; handbooks and policies; drug and alcohol programs; executive compensation, employment and non-competition agreements; and individual and group severance programs and related matters. He also provides training to management and non-management employees in all areas affecting the employer/employee relationship and regularly conducts on-site client training in areas such as sexual harassment, drug and alcohol testing, employee leave and disability, and EEOC compliance and investigation.
Nathan has previously served as leader of the firm’s Labor and Employment Group, one of the largest of its kind in the region.
Nathan is a frequent speaker on a variety of labor and employment topics and has been a guest legal columnist and contributing author to numerous business and professional publications, including The Oklahoman, The Journal Record, Oklahoma Employment Law Letter, HRlaws.com, and EmployerLINC, a legal blog dedicated to employers and workplace issues. He has also been interviewed by local print and broadcast media outlets on matters affecting Oklahoma employers. In addition to having served as editor of the newsletter for the Labor and Employment Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association, he has authored white papers for the Society for Human Resource Management and articles for the Oklahoma Law Review and Oklahoma Bar Journal. His major writing credits include authoring and updating Oklahoma Employment Law: Practice and Forms Manual, published by Data Trace Publishing Company since 2010; co-authoring Entertainment and Media Law Client Strategies, published by Aspatore Books in 2007; and serving as a contributing writer to Age Discrimination In The Workplace: A Primer For Human Resource Professionals, published by the Society for Human Resource Management in 1999.
His experience and expertise have earned him inclusion in Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Best Lawyers in America (employment law – management; labor law – management; labor and employment litigation) and Oklahoma Super Lawyers, where he has been named to its list of “Top 50 Oklahoma Lawyers.” Best Lawyers selected him as “Employment Lawyer of the Year (Management)” in Oklahoma City for 2019, an honor only given to a single lawyer in each legal specialty in each community.