Jackson Lewis P.C.

Co-Leader of the Labor Relations Practice Group and Transactional Services (M&A) Practice Group

Richard F. Vitarelli is a principal with the firm and co-leads the firm’s nationwide Labor Relations Practice and Transactional Services (M&A) groups.

He has almost three decades of experience representing employers in strategic labor relations and collective bargaining matters, including in the context of mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and bankruptcy. He serves as strategic labor and employment counsel for employers and multi-employer associations in various industries, including construction infrastructure, new energy (offshore wind and solar), manufacturing, health care and senior living, airline, logistics, transit, higher education and state and local government.

Rick’s collective bargaining practices includes the negotiation of national, multi-employer, specialty and industry agreements. His practice also includes representation of employers in multi-employer benefits matters, including multi-employer pension withdrawal liability and Taft-Hartley Fund collection matters. He represents employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act.

Rick’s supports employers, transactional law firms and investment firms throughout the U.S. with the labor, employment, employee benefits and immigration matters implicated in corporate transactions, leads legal diligence teams and negotiates definitive agreements within these areas, He also advises clients on post-transaction legal structure, operations and integration.

Rick regularly provides legal advice to clients in developing proactive employee relations programs, establishing and maintaining lawful double-breasted operations, and advising clients in the context of union organizing and decertification efforts.

Before joining Jackson Lewis, Rick was a practice group leader for a full-service AMLAW 200 law firm, overseeing the labor, employment, benefits and immigration practice. He served as outside general counsel to the Waterbury Connecticut Financial Planning and Assistance Board, a state takeover board created to restructure finances, labor agreements and post-employment benefits. He was a commissioner of the Connecticut State Ethics Commission from 1997 to 2004 and served as vice-chair and chair-elect from 2002 to 2004.

While attending law school, Rick was a member of the Suffolk Transnational Law Review.