Sarah DeFranco draws from more than 20 years of experience to provide on-call advice and counseling to employers of all sizes regarding compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws, such as the FMLA, ADA, Title VII, ADEA, and FLSA. Both public and privately held companies rely on Sarah’s deep understanding of multijurisdictional labor and employment laws to navigate the compliance intricacies of operating with remote and multistate workforces.

Sarah regularly drafts and negotiates executive employment agreements, consulting agreements, independent contractor agreements, separation and release agreements, retention agreements, and non-competition, non-solicitation and non-disclosure restrictive covenant agreements for publicly traded and privately held companies. She also assists employers with designing, drafting, and implementing bonus plans, commission plans, and equity awards. 

Sarah frequently supports corporate clients on both the buy-side and sell-side of mergers and acquisitions by providing labor and employment review of due diligence materials, guidance on employment-related disclosures and acquisition agreements, counseling regarding potential red flags under reps and warranties insurance (RWI) review, drafting consulting and employment agreements for post-closing continuation of key personnel, and counseling on post-closing employee transition matters.

Additionally, Sarah has vast experience drafting employee handbook policies and state law addenda for employers of all sizes and industries, and providing employers guidance regarding properly classifying workers as independent contractors.

Sarah also represents employers in employment litigation and administrative proceedings arising under federal, state, and local discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblower, and wage and hour laws, as well as in litigation of claims involving the enforcement of non-competition, non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and employee raiding restrictive covenants.