Practice Areas
The Garfinkel Group concentrates its work in four areas where business decisions routinely create the greatest risk and legal exposure.
Wage & Hour / Employee Compensation
Wage and hour violations rarely stem from misunderstanding the law. They arise from business decisions about cost, classification, and control.
We litigate matters involving misclassification, off-the-clock work, unpaid wages, bonus and commission disputes, and compensation practices that prioritize margin over compliance. These cases turn on decisions about workforce design, incentive structures, and whether the financial benefits of noncompliance were deemed acceptable. Our approach reconstructs who approved compensation models, what risks were identified, and why corrective action was deferred or rejected.
Privacy & Data Protection
Privacy violations are almost never accidental. They result from decisions about data collection, retention, monitoring, and monetization.
We represent individuals in disputes involving biometric privacy, surveillance, and misuse of personal information, where organizations chose convenience, efficiency, or profit over lawful handling of data. These cases focus on what decision-makers knew about legal requirements, what safeguards were considered, and why compliance was subordinated to business objectives.
Corporate Fraud & Whistleblowing
Fraud and retaliation cases are defined by choices about disclosure, escalation, and truth.
We represent whistleblowers and employees who suffer retaliation after raising concerns about financial misconduct, regulatory violations, or internal practices that expose organizations to liability. Our work centers on identifying when leaders chose to suppress information, marginalize internal critics, or preserve institutional narratives rather than address underlying risk.
Discrimination & Harassment
Discrimination and harassment persist when management decisions protect authority over accountability.
We litigate matters involving discriminatory treatment, hostile work environments, and retaliation where complaints were minimized, investigations were constrained, or discipline was avoided to preserve hierarchy or productivity. These cases turn on decisions about who to believe, how thoroughly to investigate, and whether the cost of intervention was judged to outweigh the cost of harm.