Michael A. Curley
In founding and leading Curley, Hessinger & Johnsrud LLP, Michael Curley brings more than 25 years of experience in advising clients throughout the country and around the world with regard to labor and employment law matters. In those years, he has litigated numerous high-profile cases before the National Labor Relations Board, at FINRA, in various arbitration forums, and in state and federal courts located throughout the country.
Mr. Curley has broad experience in all aspects of labor and employment law, with extensive experience and expertise in the following areas: employment discrimination law (including Title VII, the ADEA, the ADA, and the various state and local laws addressing employment discrimination and harassment); traditional labor law (including collective bargaining, administration of collective bargaining agreements, grievance and arbitration, and proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board); wage and hour; restructurings and layoffs (including WARN); wrongful discharge; breach of contract matters; the Family and Medical Leave Act; manager and employee training; litigation avoidance; and counseling with regard to all of these areas.
Mr. Curley has expertise and decades of experience in the entertainment, financial services, trucking, and airline industries. He has served as lead counsel in numerous high-profile litigation matters in those industries, and has also been lead counsel in numerous collective bargaining negotiations and NLRB proceedings. Mr. Curley also has considerable experience in the representation of foreign companies doing business in the United States, having served for many years as outside U.S. labor and employment counsel for companies headquartered in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Mr. Curley also has extensive expertise and experience handling restrictive covenant and non-compete matters, including counseling clients and drafting agreements in this highly-charged area of the law, as well as litigating numerous cases involving demands for injunctive relief in the form of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions.
Mr. Curley is recognized as one of New York's leading labor and employment lawyers. He has received recognition by Chambers USA (Tier One every year since 2003), PLC Which Lawyer, Best Lawyers, and New York Super Lawyers. In addition, Mr. Curley earned an AV rating by Martindale-Hubbell.
Mr. Curley joined O'Melveny & Myers in that firm's Los Angeles office in 1983, and he has focused exclusively on labor and employment law for the past 25 years. In 1988, he moved to the O'Melveny & Myers New York office, where he was elected to the partnership in 1990 and where he became head of the O'Melveny & Myers New York labor and employment practice group in 1991. In 2002, Mr. Curley joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, and shortly after that he became the leader of the Morgan Lewis New York labor and employment practice group. In 2005, Mr. Curley moved to Philadelphia and took on an office in the Morgan Lewis Philadelphia labor and employment group while still maintaining his primary client and practice focus in New York.
Mr. Curley is a member of the ABA Labor Section and of the NLRA Practice and Procedure Committee of that Section. He is a member of the New York State Bar and the New York State Bar Labor Section, where he is a member of the Section's Executive Committee. He is also a long-time member of the New York Management Attorneys Conference and a member of that organization's Executive Committee. In addition, he is an emeritus member of the NYU Law School's Labor and Employment Advisory Board, a regular guest lecturer at Harvard Law School and other law schools and universities, and a frequent faculty member at the NYU Law School Judicial Conference.
Mr. Curley is a 1983 graduate of Villanova University School of Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and the Villanova Law Review. He graduated from Drexel University with a B. S. in Accounting in 1980. Mr. Curley serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia.