Michael J. Ossip Partner

Michael J. Ossip is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Labor and Employment Practice. Mr. Ossip is the national co-chair of Morgan Lewis's Wage and Hour Team. His practice is devoted exclusively to the representation of management in all facets of employee relations, including the litigation of claims of employment discrimination and wrongful discharge in federal and state courts. Mr. Ossip has tried to verdict numerous jury and nonjury cases.

In addition to his litigation experience, Mr. Ossip represents employers before federal, state, and local administrative agencies, including the Department of Labor, the EEOC, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and in arbitration proceedings. He negotiates collective bargaining agreements and regularly provides advice to employers regarding reductions in force, disciplinary matters, wage and hour compliance, the development and administration of human resources policies and procedures, sexual harassment prevention and investigations, union organizing campaigns, and strike-related proceedings, including injunction actions. Mr. Ossip also regularly advises employers with regard to the development and enforcement of restrictive covenants and other agreements designed to protect the employer's confidential information and trade secrets.

From 2004 through 2010, Mr. Ossip was named one of the leading U.S. lawyers for employment law by Chambers USA, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. Chambers has called Mr. Ossip a "talented employment litigator" and a "leading authority on the FMLA." One client remarked to Chambers, "I have absolute confidence in him in a courtroom."

An active lecturer, Mr. Ossip regularly conducts programs for clients on employment law issues, including sexual harassment, implementing reductions in force, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. He is a regular speaker at conferences sponsored by the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute (the continuing legal education arm of the Pennsylvania Bar Association).  Mr. Ossip has been a course planner of the PBI's annual Employment Law Institute since its inception in 1995.

Mr. Ossip has served as a faculty member of Cornell University's School of EEO Studies, where he taught a course on defending charges of discrimination before the EEOC and other administrative agencies. He has written extensively on the interaction among the ADA, FMLA, and workers' compensation statutes, sexual harassment, the FLSA, and other employment law topics.

Mr. Ossip is the co-editor-in chief of Ossip and Hale, The Family and Medical Leave Act, published in 2006 by BNA Books, the most comprehensive treatise on the FMLA ever published, and a senior editor of the treatise's annual supplements. He was also the chapter editor (Chapter 18: Litigation Issues) for the ABA's treatise on the Fair Labor Standards Act, published in 1999 by BNA Books.

From 1979-80, he served as a law clerk for Judge Murray M. Schwartz of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Mr. Ossip is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. Supreme Court.