Michael Kass is the Practice Group Leader of Armstrong Teasdale's Employment and Labor Law practice group and is a former co-chair of the firm's Non-Compete/Trade Secrets practice group. He represents employers and individuals in both litigation and transactional matters. His clients range from individuals and small, closely-held businesses to Fortune 100 corporations.
Also serving as outside general counsel to several companies, Michael oversees all aspects of legal issues for many of his corporate clients. He customizes business and legal strategies to meet each client’s overall goals and objectives, paying particular attention to the effect decisions will have on overlapping legal and business issues.
Michael defends employers and their managers in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. Such matters involve the wide spectrum of employment litigation, including claims concerning employment agreements, Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protection, sales commissions and compensation issues, sexual harassment, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), medical leave issues under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and various other forms of discrimination under Title VII.
A considerable portion of Michael’s practice is devoted to both counseling clients and litigating claims concerning non-compete and non-solicitation agreements and the protection of trade secrets. He regularly provides strategic counseling and pursues or defends claims on behalf of employers attempting to enforce agreements and statutory rights against former employees, on behalf of employers hiring employees from a competitor and on behalf of individual employees. He also handles some types of business litigation, including shareholder disputes in closely-held entities.
Well-versed in policies and best practices within the non-compete/trade secrets and employment law areas, Michael regularly writes, speaks, and trains on these topics. He crafts specially-tailored programs aimed at maximizing a company’s ability to prevent unfair competition from former employees, as well as programs that focus on preventatively guarding against the threat of employment-related suits in general. In addition, he develops executive employment agreements, personnel policies, employee manuals and other employment-related documents and advises executives and professionals about the terms of their own employment contracts.