Richard Reibstein

Richard regularly counsels employers on how to comply with the law and avoid lawsuits that could arise under an array of labor and employment laws. He also conducts workplace investigations and defends employers in claims involving employment discrimination (including workplace harassment, hostile work environment, and disability claims), wrongful discharge and workplace torts (including defamation, fraud, invasion of privacy, tortious interference, and negligent hiring and retention), and family and medical leaves and benefit disputes. Richard negotiates collective bargaining agreements with unions on behalf of management, handling matters before the National Labor Relations Board as well as labor arbitrations.

In the area of independent contractor and wage/hour compliance, Richard represents scores of clients in an array of diverse industries, including the gig economy. He has developed a sought-after legal product, IC Diagnostics™, that has been used by hundreds of clients in the past 10 years to enhance their compliance with federal and state independent compliance laws. Richard defends businesses across the country before administrative agencies in unemployment and other regulatory proceedings and before the courts in single plaintiff and class action employee misclassification lawsuits, as well as claims seeking overtime, unpaid benefits, and unpaid expenses. He works closely with employment tax lawyers in defending against IRS audits.

Richard is the publisher of the only legal blog with original content dedicated to independent contractor compliance/misclassification. He has published more than 300 comprehensive blog posts and has been quoted more than 120 times by leading legal, business, and media publications for his insights in this area of law. Since 2010, Richard has written more than 60 articles and has made more than two dozen presentations to businesses and industry associations on the subject.

Richard has extensive experience in the area of noncompete and trade secret law. He crafts corporate protection plans and negotiates and drafts state-of-the-art noncompete agreements and other types of restrictive covenants. Richard counsels clients on securing compliance with such agreements by departing employees and their new employers and, conversely, how to lift out key employees of competitors who have signed these types of agreements, and he litigates noncompetes, non-solicitations, and trade secret matters in state and federal courts.

• Richard has obtained a number of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions and secured permanent injunctions restraining unfair competition and trade secret misappropriation, as well as reimbursement of legal fees and expenses.
• In response to a claim of pregnancy discrimination, Richard filed a comprehensive answer along with a lawsuit for willful destruction of the contents of a company laptop, leading to a mutual withdrawal of all legal proceedings.
• In an IRS employment tax audit of an insurance industry client, Richard and one of his tax partners obtained a determination that thousands of workers had been properly classified as independent contractors, avoiding an exposure of more than $20 million.
• As special independent contractor counsel, Richard obtained the dismissal of a nationwide collective and class action misclassification lawsuit brought in Massachusetts involving more than 1,800 local childcare consultants for an au pair agency classified as independent contractors.
• Richard has litigated a number of class and collective actions and arbitrations alleging misclassification of independent contractors and employees and resolved each in mediation for a small fraction of the amounts demanded.
• In an audit by the U.S. Department of Labor of a client in the commercial cleaning industry that focused on the independent contractor status of hundreds of service providers, Richard secured a finding that the cleaning contractors had been classified correctly.
• Drawing on his experience as an attorney for the NLRB in Washington, D.C. and New York City, Richard has helped clients in a variety of industries maintain a union-free workplace. Where clients have an existing collective bargaining relationship, he has assisted them in labor contract negotiations, handled labor arbitrations, and defended against unfair labor practice charges before the NLRB.
• Richard has defended hundreds of unemployment insurance audits and benefit claims in more than 35 states for clients that engage workers as independent contractors.

• The Best Lawyers in America®: Employment Law – Management, Litigation – Labor and Employment (2025-2026)
• Super Lawyers® New York, Employment and Labor (2014-2019, 2021-2024)
• JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards, Top Author, employer liability (2016-2017 and 2019-2022)
• JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards, Top Author, class actions (2016, 2020-2021)