Christopher J. Stevens

/My focus

I represent employers confronted with people, payroll, and other problems that arise in the context of the employment relationship. My practice focuses on litigation, though I also provide employment-related advice and counsel to clients across a wide spectrum of industries.

Employment Litigation

I represent employers in all phases of litigation. I regularly handle cases filed in both state and federal court. I also defend clients against employment-related claims before various administrative agencies including the EEOC, the NLRB, the New York State Division of Human Rights, and the Department of Labor. I have experience litigating wage-hour class actions seeking unpaid overtime, collective actions brought under the FLSA, and single plaintiff lawsuits alleging discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

I view cases that clients entrust me to handle as problems to solve and pride myself on developing practical solutions to them in an efficient way.

Compliance and Counseling

I also provide strategic advice and counseling on a variety of employment-related legal issues including handbook/policy development, terminations, performance management, overtime eligibility, reasonable accommodations, and leave requests. My proactive advising includes providing trainings on various topics including harassment, wage-hour compliance, and more.

Prior to joining Nixon Peabody, I served as in-house employment counsel at Goldman Sachs. My in-house experience enables me to understand and appreciate how clients are looking at a problem and how outside counsel can add value during the collaborative process of working with a client to develop solutions that work for their unique business.

/Looking ahead

The evolution and further adoption of tools that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence will be enormously impactful over the next decade. Those developments will impact almost every aspect of every business.

/Insights

• “FLSA Changes and Wage Theft Protection Act Notices,” The HR Advisor, August 3, 2016 (co-author)
• “Keeping Up With Evolving Cybersecurity Regulations,” New York Law Journal, June 6, 2016 (co-author)
• “An Empirical Study of Dissent at the Third Department,” 74 Albany Law Review 913, 2011
• “Beating Around the Bush: Reforming the Political Question Doctrine and Creating a Necessity Based Exception,” Center for Judicial Process blog, spring 2011