Kris D. Meade is a partner and co-chair of Crowell & Moring's Labor and Employment Group. He counsels and represents employers in the full range of employment and traditional labor law matters, including individual and class action lawsuits filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ERISA, and companion state statutes. Kris represents employers in connection with union organizing campaigns, collective bargaining, labor arbitrations, and unfair labor practice litigation.
Kris also counsels and represents employers in connection with affirmative action compliance matters, including the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs' corporate management (or "glass ceiling") reviews and affirmative action compliance audits. He represents and counsels employers in business tort cases, Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower retaliation matters, matters involving the protection of trade secrets, and litigation over non-competition agreements and other restrictive covenants.
Kris has particular experience in conducting sophisticated statistical analyses in connection with employment class action litigation, compensation audits conducted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and self-audits conducted by employers to ensure compliance with federal regulations, Title VII, and the Equal Pay Act. He frequently teams with statisticians who serve as consulting or testifying experts in private litigation or government enforcement actions. In addition, Kris has substantial experience in managing and coordinating large-scale discovery in nationwide, serial litigation.
Kris is a member of the firm's Privacy and Data Protection team. In that capacity, he teams with lawyers from our European offices to assist clients with their implementation of global privacy programs, compliance with the "Safe Harbor" scheme administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and compliance with the expanding patchwork of state laws implicating privacy concerns, including state security breach notification laws. Kris regularly advises clients regarding possible cross-border data transfer solutions, including the use of model transborder data flow agreements, Safe Harbor registration, and binding corporate rules, taking into account the client's data flows and corporate structure. He has likewise assisted clients in their efforts to comply with state security breach notification laws, both in the context of actual security breaches and in implementing appropriate pre-breach measures to ensure compliance with those laws that require pre-breach measures.
Kris received a bachelor of arts summa cum laude from the University of Michigan, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated with honors from The George Washington University Law School. He is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bars.