our team  |  vanessa kelly, esq.

Listen to Vanessa speak about what her firm can do for you.

It takes teamwork to get to the top and your employees are all members of that team. But those same team members may also be a primary source of liability for today’s employers. That’s why it is vital to protect your company while simultaneously creating a productive working environment. Vanessa M. Kelly can help you strike that balance and keep your business on top.

Known for her ability to find creative and practical solutions, Kelly’s clients turn to her for advice on terminating difficult employees, hiring an employee from a competitor, or accommodating disabilities or the need for leave from work. Kelly has extensive experience counseling employers on employment issues, including workplace misconduct, protecting key personnel and proprietary information, contingent workers, reductions in force, and implementation of workplace policies designed to avoid disputes and ensure compliance with state and federal law. She performs investigations of employment issues for employers and counsels her employer clients through the process of investigation and remedial measures. In today’s pro-employee environment, she can provide you with the tools you need to navigate this complex terrain.

Kelly has significant experience in drafting employment agreements, restrictive covenants, separation agreements, independent contractor and contingent worker agreements. She has created human resource functions, processes, forms and policies for new and growing businesses.

On a larger scale, Kelly has defended employment claims in state and federal courts across the country and prosecuted and defended enforcement of restrictive covenants, both here in New Jersey and in other jurisdictions. She has worked with employer practices liability carriers in defense of claims asserted against their policyholders.

An experienced trial lawyer, Kelly has conducted both jury and bench trials. By aggressively zeroing in on the pitfalls of the other side’s case, she has won no-cause verdicts for employers against whistle-blower, race, age and sex discrimination, and disability accommodation claims. She also has experience defending employers against claims raised in state and federal administrative agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Kelly has successfully defended employers against claims for unpaid wages and benefits and has negotiated favorable settlements with state agencies.

Kelly writes and speaks on employment law issues. She is a frequent speaker for the American Bar Association’s Section of Labor and Employment Law, and has addressed members of the Employers Association of New Jersey on protecting proprietary information. She has been a contributing editor to the American Bar Association, Employment Section and BNA’s jointly prepared State-by-State compendiums, including Covenants Not to Compete, Defining Proprietary Information, Employee Duty of Loyalty, and its employment alerts.

Before forming her own firm, Kelly was Of Counsel to the Morristown, New Jersey office of Jackson Lewis, LLP, a national law firm specializing in the representation of employers in employment related matters, an associate of the Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross Employment and Labor practice group and a Litigation Associate at Morristown’s Porzio, Bromberg & Newman.

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