Richard defends significant employment-related litigation, including class actions, wage and hour issues, and discrimination and retaliation claims. He also pursues cases for financial services, health care, hospitality companies, and other businesses to protect their trade secrets and to prevent former employees from violating their restrictive covenant obligations.

Richard advises C-suite officers on a plethora of issues, including intellectual property, real estate, corporate governance, and government investigations and litigation. His eye is always on obtaining the most advantageous results for clients, both in terms of human capital and their bottom line.

As a litigator with expansive experience, clients often engage Richard in matters outside his core practice of employment law. For example, in a trial that encompassed 11 months, he represented the former director of the Office of Special Investigations, an office tasked with identifying and prosecuting Nazi war criminals living in the U.S., in sui generis proceedings related to Department of Justice attorneys having been accused of committing a fraud on the court due to their pursuit of a Nazi camp guard accused of being Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka. Most recently, Richard asserted a case involving the denial of pension benefits that may be applicable to hundreds of former state employees.

A former assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, Richard is intimately familiar with the U.S. District Court there, often being requested to assist the court by representing indigent plaintiffs to help resolve their cases.

• For a Massachusetts-based bank, Richard obtained a sizeable monetary settlement and a permanent injunction from the U.S. District Court in Boston against a former employee who strayed to a competitor and allegedly violated the restrictive covenants in his contract.
• For a financial management company, by aggressively pursuing early-stage discovery, Richard intensely pursued a former employee for absconding with his client’s trade secrets.
• In a dispute that engendered litigation in Texas and Florida, after two days of trial in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Richard obtained a preliminary injunction against a former financial institution executive accused of violating the non-solicitation obligations in his employment contract.
• In a hotly contested matter, Richard secured a prompt resolution on behalf of a Massachusetts real estate client in a case in New Hampshire involving alleged violations of noncompete agreements.
• In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Richard first-chaired, and the client prevailed, in a rare evidentiary hearing conducted on the issue of class certification.
• After an evidentiary hearing that spanned 11 months, Richard obtained a 211-page decision clearing a former Justice Department official client of having committed a fraud on the court regarding a concentration camp guard, Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.

• Boston Magazine, Top Lawyer (2022)
• Chambers USA, Labor and Employment (2014-2025)
• The Best Lawyers in America®: Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law (2025-2026), Commercial Litigation (2024-2026), Employment Law-Management (2016-2026), Litigation-Labor and Employment (2020-2026)
• Super Lawyers® Massachusetts, Employment Litigation (2004-2024)
• Judge Baker Children’s Center, Honoree (2019)
• Anti-Defamation League, David A. Rose Civil Rights Award
• Dartmouth College, Distinguished Alumnus Award
• Dartmouth College, The Charles F. Moore, Jr. Award
• Dartmouth College, The Class of 1926 Award
• American Jewish Committee, Community Service Award
• Lena Park Development Corporation, Community Service Award
• AV Rating® by Martindale-Hubbell, Peer Review Rated
• Senior Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America, Order of Veritas