Fisher Phillips Elects New Partners

ATLANTA, GA (January 3, 2012) - Fisher Phillips announced the election of new partners effective January 1, 2012.

Brent Cossrow is a partner in the Philadelphia office, where his practice involves general employment counseling and litigation. In addition to counseling businesses on a wide range of employment matters, Brent maintains a particular practice focus on issues arising out of the movement of employees between competing companies. As a part of this nationwide practice, Brent has enforced and defended emerging "e-discovery" issues in corporate espionage cases, such as the preservation of electronically stored evidence on computer and e-mail systems and digital storage devices, recovering deleted digital evidence, the misappropriation and spoliation of electronic evidence, the impact of incorporating open source code into proprietary computer programming, the examination of opposing forensic computer experts, and civil claims under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Brent was recognized in Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Rising Stars in 2008. He earned his law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2000.

Joseph Gagnon is a partner in the Houston office. He represents employers in litigation before state and federal courts and administrative agencies. Joe handles the defense of a wide variety of discrimination and discharge claims brought under Title VII, the ADA, FMLA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. He also defends state law claims of workers' comp retaliation, breach of contract, fraud, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, and assault. He provides preventive services to reduce the likelihood of litigation, including general consultation, management and employee training, development of employment policies, and consultation regarding legislative current events and judicial trends. Joe is an experienced appellate advocate, having represented clients in original actions, interlocutory appeals, and appeals of final judgments in both state and federal courts. Joe is "AV" Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell. He earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1993.

Todd Scherwin is a partner in the Irvine office. His practice involves representing employers in various aspects of labor and employment law, including employment discrimination, harassment, state and federal wage-hour matters, employment handbook preparation, trade-secret protection and day to day employment matters. Todd regularly counsels employers on dealing with difficult issues with their workforce including state and federal leave laws and wage-hour laws. Todd has defended employers in civil litigation, including bench trials and arbitrations as well as before federal and state administrative agencies including the Department of Labor, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, and the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Todd is a member of the HR Advisory Board at the California State University, Long Beach where he has guest lectured students enrolled in the Human Resources Program. He earned his law degree from the University of Southern California Law Center in 2005.