Christopher Fontenelli is a litigator whose practice focuses on two distinct but related areas of law — complex commercial litigation and labor and employment. In the area of complex commercial litigation, Chris represents clients in class and collective actions, commercial contractual disputes, and product liability and mass tort actions. In the area of labor of employment law, Chris counsels clients concerning a wide variety of matters, including disputes relating to discrimination, sexual harassment, employment agreements, wage and hour violations, employee misclassification, misappropriation of trade secrets and enforcement of restrictive covenants. Chris has extensive experience in New York and New Jersey state courts and federal courts throughout the country, and understands the nuances of litigating matters in the public eye.
Since the inception of his legal career, Chris has provided pro bono services to KIND, a leading organization founded by Angelina Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation dedicated to providing compassionate and quality legal counsel to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children in the United States. During that time, he has appeared in state and federal court to represent numerous unaccompanied children who enter the U.S. immigration system alone to help advance their best interests, safety and well-being.
Richard Reibstein is an experienced labor and employment law practitioner who has advised companies and litigated cases across the country. In the areas of unfair competition, trade secrets, and non-competition agreements, Richard crafts corporate protection plans and negotiates and drafts state-of-the-art non-compete agreements, confidentiality pledges and other types of restrictive covenants. He 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.
Where necessary, Richard litigates controversies across the country involving non-compete and non-solicitation provisions, trade secret obligations and employees’ fiduciary duty of loyalty. He has obtained a number of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions and secured final relief, including multiple cases with injunctions that restrained a client’s former employees and their new employer from doing business with certain customers, using a prior employer’s trade secrets, and required payment of damages for unfair competition and reimbursement of legal fees and expenses. Richard has also defeated numerous claims brought in court or threatened litigation for alleged use of trade secrets and breach of non-solicitation and non-compete clauses.
