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Labor and Employment

Overview

Meeting and rethinking the modern workplace

The world of work and the workplace are changing at lightning speed. Growing customer demands, new technologies and evolving employee expectations are having a tremendous impact on all organizations. Employees are demanding more flexibility, a reconfigured work-life balance and fair and transparent compensation and benefits.

A legal team built on collaboration

Crowell’s Labor and Employment team helps clients build and manage the workforce of the future. Leading global companies have turned to us to help them respond to the dynamic challenges of navigating employment laws throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Working with industry leaders in technology, aerospace, retail, and professional services, we advise on complex matters, including pay equity analyses and related reporting, recruiting practices involving artificial intelligence, and managing a remote workforce.

We conduct highly sensitive investigations and litigate complex class action matters. We also counsel several leading universities, helping to assess and resolve complex employment issues that arise in the higher-education setting. We also have deeply-rooted client relationships in the non-profit sector, working with organizations on the full range of employment law compliance matters as well as individual plaintiff and class action litigation.

Clients benefit from the collective experience of our 40 plus lawyer team, including prior service at key government agencies, proven complex litigation and investigation successes, our leading-edge pay equity practice, and collaboration with the firm’s wealth of highly-skilled legal professionals in related disciplines. As a result, clients get creative and effective business solutions that can help win the battle for talent, ensure compliance with applicable laws, support and navigate global expansion, and protect a company's brand.

Our services

We help clients with:

  • High-stakes employment discrimination claims
  • Wage-and-hour class and collective actions
  • Racial equity audits, civil rights audits and ESG issues
  • High stakes, sensitive personnel investigations and whistleblower retaliation matters
  • Responses to the radical changes in the workforce borne of the pandemic, including designing effective return to office and continuing remote work strategies on a global scale
  • Trade secret and non-compete litigation
  • Pay equity
  • New union organizing in sectors not traditionally unionized and resultant workforce strategies
  • Fiduciary duty, benefit claims, and other ERISA litigation
  • Global employee mobility

Contacts

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Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future....

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Representative Matters

  • Led an investigation of a whistleblower complaint against a national museum in which anonymous former employees alleged that the museum’s leadership improperly received and displayed art loans in violation of federal and state tax laws, museum policies, and national museum accreditation standards.
  • Investigated age and gender discrimination claims brought by Chief Legal Officer of global aerospace company/British multinational defense company Joint Venture in which he claimed that he was being forced to step down as a result of his poor performance in connection with advising the company on a critical multi-million-dollar defense deal.
  • Won reversal at trial court level of jury’s $1.5 million verdict in favor of plaintiff, who alleged that his employment was terminated in violation of retaliation provisions of the False Claims Act, Defense Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act, and California law.
  • Helped several leading technology, healthcare, and professional services companies design compensation and performance management policies, practices, and auditing programs to yield industry-leading pay equity programs.
  • Represented a leading health insurance company with a putative class action alleging pattern and practice discrimination against African-American employees brought by three current employees.
  • Represented a major university in a pay equity discrimination case brought by a current professor, alleging that she is compensated less than her similarly-situated male comparators.

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Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future....

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Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

Podcast | 11.20.25

Lightning Round: DEI Executive Orders—Where We Are Ten Months Later

Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.03.25

ICE Is Suddenly At The Door: How Retailers, Hospitals, And Hotels Can Survive The Surprise Visitor

Speaking Engagement | 11.03.25

"The Trump Administration and the Global Business Landscape," Crowell & Moring Panel Discussion, Toronto, ON.

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Professionals

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Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future....

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Practices

Contacts

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Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future....

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