Albert J. Solecki Jr.

Al Solecki is a partner in Goodwin’s Employment practice and a leader of the firm’s Trade Secrets, Employee Mobility + Non-Competes group. For more than 25 years, he has successfully counseled businesses on how to avoid legal claims by employees and other third parties and vigorously defended employers when they are the target of employment and related investigations, litigations or administrative proceedings. In addition to his active employment litigation and counseling practice, Al has served in several senior management roles at Goodwin, including as the Chair of its New York office and as a member of each of the firm's Executive, Allocations, and Partnership Committees.

Al represents employers in all phases of labor and employment-related litigation. He appears regularly before federal and state courts and arbitration tribunals throughout the United States and has successfully defended employers in the consulting, entertainment, financial services, life sciences, manufacturing, media, private equity, real estate, sports, transportation and technology industries. In addition to defending employers who are the target of discrimination and other employment-related claims, Al has extensive experience representing employers and senior-level executives as lead trial counsel in restrictive covenant litigations involving allegations of employee raiding, theft of trade secrets and breach of non-competition and non-solicitation agreements.

Al also counsels and advises employers on compliance with the ever increasingly complex web of federal, state, and local labor and employment laws and regulations. This counseling and advice ranges from drafting and reviewing general employment policies, employment agreements and employee handbooks to assisting with specific employee terminations and other employment-related decisions; from designing and implementing management seminars and training on new laws, regulations and court decisions to giving advice on difficult personnel actions such as plant closings, mass layoffs and the reduction or elimination of employee benefit programs. Moreover, Al regularly advises purchasers, sellers, and lenders on labor and employment law aspects of business mergers, acquisitions and restructurings.

Al is a graduate of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy’s Trial Training Program and is an active member of the American Bar Association. He is a member of the ABA’s Section of Labor and Employment Law as well as its Section of Litigation, and serves on the ABA’s Trial Practice Committee, its Committee on Employment and Labor Relations Law, and its Committee on Pretrial Practice and Discovery.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Al was a member of the Labor and Employment Law Department at O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

Al has repeatedly been recognized as a New York Super Lawyer from 2006 through 2022 and is a Recommended Lawyer by Legal 500. In addition, he is a former member of the New York Management Attorneys’ Conference (an honorary society of management-side labor and employment law attorneys who have practiced exclusively in the labor and employment law field for more than ten years and who have distinguished themselves in this field).

While attending law school, Al was Managing Editor of the Villanova Environmental Law Journal, a member of the Villanova Moot Court Board and the recipient of the Bureau of National Affairs Award for Scholastic Performance.

Al has authored more than 20 published articles and book chapters on labor and employment law topics and regularly lectures on such topics. In addition, he is frequently quoted concerning labor and employment law trends in the general and legal media, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Investor’s Business Daily, Inc. Magazine, Human Resource Executive, The Employment Law Strategist, The New York Law Journal, The Boston Herald, Business Insurance and GC New York.