Chris Lopez, Esq., Of Counsel to the Firm, is an experienced trial attorney who has dedicated his career to labor & employment law. Most recently, Mr. Lopez has worked as in-house counsel to fortune 500 companies providing strategic legal advice to corporate leaders on labor and employment initiatives and managing employment disputes throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia.
Prior to joining the private sector, Mr. Lopez spent nearly a decade in public service. Mr. Lopez worked as a senior trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor where he represented the federal government in federal, administrative, and circuit courts across the country litigating the labor and employment statutes enforced by the DOL. Through that work, Mr. Lopez gained extensive experience litigating cases through trial verdicts on complex disputes involving Wage and Hour, OSHA, MSHA, Civil Rights, ERISA, OFCCP, as well as matters before the EEOC and MSPB. Among his notable accomplishments, Mr. Lopez obtained favorable trial outcomes in workplace fatality and injury cases affirming OSHA and MSHA penalties, and recovering back wages, overtime and punitive relief for underpaid employees in Wage and Hour disputes. He also resolved many EEO, workplace safety, wage and hour, civil rights, and ERISA disputes that resulted in seven figure settlements obtained on behalf of affected employees.
Mr. Lopez also served a federal clerkship term for the Honorable Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Mr. Lopez also has served on the executive board for the labor & employment section of his local bar association and co-chaired the employee benefits section of the American Bar Association where he served as an editor and contributing author on several publications of the employee benefits law treatise.
In addition to his legal practice, Mr. Lopez has worked as an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University School of Law and the University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law where he has taught labor & employment, ERISA, advocacy, and legal writing courses. Mr. Lopez holds a Juris Doctor Magna Cum Laude from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University where he served as an editor on the Thurgood Marshall Law Review, and a Marketing degree from Stephen F. Austin State University where he was a student-athlete. He is admitted to practice in Texas as well as the U.S. District Court for the Southern and Western Districts of Texas, District of Colorado, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
