Michael Kent: Championing Justice in Labor and Employment Law
Michael Kent is an accomplished attorney with a decade of experience in labor and employment law. His journey in this field began at McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, where he found his passion for aiding individuals who suffered injustices at the hands of their employers. Kent’s commitment to ensuring a fair living wage for all is a cornerstone of his own practice.
Under the mentorship of Patrick McNicholas, whom he met during law school, Kent honed his skills in trial advocacy and learned the intricacies of the business of law.
“I joined his firm in early 2015, where I learned much of what I know today, not only from Patrick, but from his father John and brother Matthew, along with the other great senior attorneys at the firm, as well,” Kent said. “Patrick not only taught me how to try cases, and as he put it, ‘the psychology of the case’, but taught me about the business of law as well.”
One of Kent’s notable cases involved representing a battalion chief with 22 years of service who was demoted after challenging what he believed to be an illegal order and a misappropriation of government funds by the fire chief.
Kent said despite the defendant’s claims of performance issues and personality conflicts, he successfully resolved the case on the eve of trial for $1.45 million.
Kent said he believes this case is significant due to the long-standing service of the plaintiff and the perceived retaliation and betrayal he faced.
He said every discrimination and retaliation case is similar to a criminal case, in that, is has to be proven that an employer intended to discriminate or retaliate.
“This is almost always the main obstacle in those cases,” Kent said. “Often times, there is not any direct evidence, such as statements from the employer, indicating that they want or intend to discriminate or retaliate. As such, you need to prove these more often than not by circumstantial evidence, such as indirect comments or slights, temporal proximity, past performance of your client, etc. In order to develop circumstantial evidence, creating a timeline of events is absolutely crucial. Once you have a sufficient timeline, deposing the key witnesses is important. By doing this, you can often develop the circumstantial evidence, to demonstrate that the employer’s intent was in fact to discriminate and/or retaliate.”