Attorney Parisis Filippatos Appears on Cover of Us Business News

Recently, Parisis Filippatos, a Partner at Phillips & Associates, appeared on the cover of US Business News. He discussed with the magazine how our New York employment attorneys are re-energizing the field of plaintiff's employment law. US Business News is a magazine geared toward decision makers, game changers, and dealmakers in the market. Among its subscribers are CEOs, partners, owners, managers, presidents, litigators, directors, and mediators. The magazine focuses on new developments in the contemporary business landscape

Mr. Filippatos manages the White Plains office of Phillips & Associates. He has litigated employment law and labor law matters for more than 25 years. He began his career as a New York City Assistant Corporation Counsel and then served in private practice, where he worked first on the management side and then as an employee advocate. He has litigated claims arising out of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley. He has represented numerous individuals and businesses in many different matters.

Mr. Filippatos' practice at Phillips & Associates is focused on litigating gender discrimination and sexual harassment cases against Fortune 500 companies and financial services companies. He also litigates retaliation and whistleblower cases against the same types of large, powerful defendants. Furthermore, he negotiates severance agreements, executive compensation agreements, and employment contracts. He was a principal litigator in a 2004 landmark lawsuit involving glass ceiling claims against Morgan Stanley, Inc.

Gender Discrimination

Your New York employer should not consider your gender when deciding the terms and conditions of your employment. Instead, it should make employment decisions about hiring, pay, promotions, layoffs, firing, demotions, and training based on your job performance and merits. Gender discrimination could include not promoting a woman due to her gender, for example, or paying her less than a man in the same position. Women and men can both be victims of gender discrimination. Moreover, gender discrimination may happen even when the perpetrator of the gender discrimination has the same gender as the employee who is the victim. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the federal law that prohibits gender discrimination.

Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is a type of sex discrimination. It is actionable if it is so frequent or so severe that it alters the terms and conditions of employment. A trivial or minor incident would not constitute hostile work environment harassment. Quid pro quo harassment means "this for that," and it involves an authority figure in the workplace, such as a supervisor or manager, asking an employee for a sexual favor as a trade for continued employment or a job benefit. For example, if your manager says that he will promote you if you spend the night with him on a business trip, this would be quid pro quo sexual harassment.

Retaliation

Most anti-discrimination laws include a provision that prohibits retaliation. Retaliation happens if a worker is engaged in a protected activity, and the employer takes an adverse step in response. Under Title VII, for example, a protected activity would include opposing racial harassment against a coworker or filing a charge with the EEOC about racial discrimination. Adverse actions can include any material alterations to your employment, including firing, denial of benefits, a demotion, or a refusal to promote. For example, you may have a retaliation claim if you testified in your coworker's sexual harassment trial, and in response your employer fired you.

Usually, employers do not admit that they retaliated against an employee because they complained about discrimination or harassment. In some cases, it is possible to prove a retaliation claim by showing that other employees who had a similar employment history were not treated in the same manner.

Contact Our Attorneys to Explore Your Next Steps

When you have been affected by mistreatment in your workplace, you should consult our firm to find out what you can do about it. Contact Phillips & Associates at (866) 229-9441 or through our online form for a free consultation with an attorney. We handle employment litigation in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, as well as Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties and the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.