DLA Piper Puerto Rico

Employment; Consumer Goods, Food and Retail

Partner

With over 35 years of experience, Janine Guzmán has represented corporate clients in complex labor and employment matters including hiring, wage and hour, statutory licenses and employee benefits, performance, discipline and termination, business restructurings, reductions in force and relocations, drug testing programs, discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace harassment, affirmative action, domestic violence, employee privacy, confidentiality and restrictive covenants, defamation, safety in the workplace and immigration. She has developed vast experience in the legal and regulatory aspects of both federal and local labor issues. Janine counsels small, medium and large national and international corporations regarding employment issues on an ongoing basis.

She advises a wide range of businesses covering a number of sectors, among them retail, wholesale, services, educational institutions, hospitality and leisure, communications and manufacturing. Her extensive experience includes wrongful discharges; employment discrimination proceedings at the federal, state and local levels; defending claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Puerto Rico wage-and-hour laws; and representation before the Unemployment Bureau, Industrial Commission, Anti-Discrimination Unit, the EEOC, OSHA, Arbitration and Conciliation Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board.

Janine works closely with the firm's Corporate group in conducting due diligences and assisting in the disclosures of employee and labor matters in business mergers and acquisitions, on both the buy and sell sides, as well as in stock or asset purchase deals. In recent years, she has participated in important transactions involving financial institutions, communication companies and medical and hospital supply distributors. Janine currently co-chairs the US Immigration Practice and the LatAm Employment Practice.  She is also the Chair of the Pro Bono Committee and Co-Chair of the D&I Committee for the San Juan DLA Office.

Janine has served as a lecturer in employment law seminars for different organizations, including the Puerto Rico Association for Labor Relations Practitioners, the Society for Human Resources Management and Council of Education in Management. She also counsels clients on the regulatory aspects of the Puerto Rico Department of Consumers Affairs, represents them in adjudicative proceedings before the agency and trains management teams on DACO regulations.

Society for Human Resources Management Association of Labor Relations Practitioners

J.D., Inter American University of Puerto Rico