Ryan represents employers and executives in labor matters and complex employment litigation and provides strategic labor and employment advice.

Ryan’s labor and employment litigation experience is both broad and deep, and he is particularly skilled in defending employers against wage and hour class and collective actions. Ryan has been involved in over thirty-five of these cases, along with numerous other single plaintiff wage and hour matters, throughout the country. He has achieved success for his clients in many of these cases, including on the merits, in defeating class certification, and/or in successfully challenging plaintiffs’ damages expert/calculations.

Ryan’s litigation experience also includes whistleblower claims, Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class actions, ERISA actions, H-2B and J-1 immigration litigation, single- and multi-plaintiff discrimination and harassment litigation, and prosecution and defense of breach of contract and restrictive covenant litigation.

Ryan also routinely represents management in complex traditional labor matters in union elections, collective bargaining, strike contingency planning and execution, unfair labor practice proceedings, and arbitrations. Ryan has represented clients in dozens of union elections and has negotiated numerous collective bargaining agreements covering thousands of employees.

Ryan is admitted to practice in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the US District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia and the District of Colorado. He has litigated cases in the state and federal courts of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Ryan also provides strategic advice to clients on a full range of labor and employment issues. He advises clients in the retail, hospitality, coal and other natural resources, power, health care, food processing, manufacturing, consumer products, and service industries.