Michael is a partner in the Firm’s Litigation and Employment & Labor Groups.
Relying on over twenty years of experience, Michael litigates trade secret, unfair competition, dissolution, slander, breach of contract and other commercial/transactional/real estate matters. Michael also regularly represents employers regarding discrimination, wage hour and other employment and labor issues.
Michael’s clients include technology, big data, communication, healthcare, online retail, entertainment, advertising, public relations, marketing, wholesale, insurance, securities, construction, real estate development and management, light and heavy manufacturing, not-for-profit, food service, hospitality, transportation, shipping, distribution and other businesses as well as educational institutions and real estate entities.
A “C-Suite” level advisor with long term client relationships, Michael offers litigation avoidance and risk management guidance. Michael works with companies ranging in size from family-owned businesses up to and including multi-national corporations.
Michael has appeared in Federal and State Courts as well as Administrative Government Agencies and Arbitration Panels throughout the country, including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Puerto Rico, California, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Washington DC and Maryland. Examples of Administrative Agency appearances include the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the New York State Division of Human Rights, the New York City Commission on Human Rights, the United States Department of Labor, the New York State Department of Labor and the New York State Workers Compensation Board.
Michael also counsels employers concerning separation of employment, reductions in force including mass layoffs, leave policies, computer use and electronic data policies, personnel practices, wage hour, union representation and (where appropriate) avoidance, collective bargaining, strikes, picketing including addressing picket line violence, OSHA and other matters.
Michael is frequently retained on an emergency basis to prevent our clients from suffering immediate irreparable harm absent court intervention.
Michael’s many successes include a complete win where he obtained a seven figure award plus attorneys’ fees in an unfair competition action. There, Michael successfully persuaded the Court to order forensic discovery of defendant’s computers in a case of first impression. He then demonstrated defendants destroyed “smoking gun” emails and other electronic data establishing an adverse inference against defendants.
In recognition of Michael’s extensive experience as a trial advocate, he is frequently asked to work with out-of-state lawyers in connection with representing their clients in New York Federal and State actions and/or has been retained as special counsel for a discrete area. In this regard, Michael has also served as a court-appointed electronic discovery referee.
Michael has drafted handbooks, employment agreements, trade secret agreements and separation agreements affecting over a hundred thousand employees as well as providing day-to-day human resources advice. Michael is often requested to provide management training for both large and small companies. In addition, Mr. Masri is regularly approved to defend insureds in connection with employment practice liability and related matters.
Michael is routinely invited to teach continuing legal and accounting education courses, to join symposia faculty and/or present to the business community concerning an ever-widening range of topics including computer forensics, electronic discovery, social media, employee relations, employment handbooks and policies, trade secret protection, ethical rules governing attorneys, New York civil procedure, the rules of the Commercial Part of the New York State courts and other matters. Michael is also frequently interviewed in connection with providing his opinions concerning social media, forensic recovery of electronic date, employment and other questions.
Before graduating law school, Michael worked as a Board Agent at the National Labor Relations Board where he investigated unfair labor practice charges and conducted union representation elections. Michael also served as a clerk for the Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Regional Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
As an attorney firmly committed to charity and improving our community, Michael has been a long-standing member of the WE CARE Advisory Board of the Nassau County Bar Association. WE CARE finances much needed food, shelter and emergency support for children, the elderly and other less fortunate Nassau County residents. Michael is also a board member of the Long Island Bike Challenge, a one hundred mile cycling event that raises money donated to the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.
Since 2010, Michael has completed almost twenty long distance obstacle races including Tough Mudders and Spartan Races to name but a few. Michael is a devoted father and the custodial parent of his beautiful teen daughters and looks forward to spending summers on the beach with his family and friends.
