Bilal Haider defends employers in administrative, state, federal, and arbitration proceedings against various claims, including wage and hour, discrimination, retaliation, and noncompete clauses. Bilal provides legal counsel to domestic and global employers on all employment matters, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, Title VII, WARN notices, employee terminations, and performance management. He handles all aspects of litigation, including interviewing clients, conducting eDiscovery, dispositive motions, preparing for trial, negotiating settlements, and attending court conferences.
Before entering private practice, Bilal was a litigating senior counsel at the New York City Law Department. He defended the City of New York in complex state and federal employment actions, including putative class actions challenging the COVID-19 vaccination mandate, First Amendment retaliation claims, discrimination claims, and denial of reasonable accommodation request claims. He handled high-profile cases that required defending the depositions of a former mayor of New York City and a former chancellor of the Department of Education. He also handled two related class actions that challenged the removal of religious head coverings for arrest photographs. Bilal drafted two separate revisions of the NYPD Patrol Guide in collaboration with high-ranking NYPD and City Hall Officials that were implemented as terms of class action settlement agreements. During his tenure at the New York City Law Department, Bilal successfully tried three jury trials in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York as co-counsel from jury selection to defense verdict, including defending a City agency in a disability discrimination claim brought by a former employee.
Early in his career, he was a prosecutor in the Bronx District Attorney’s office, where he tried two jury trials as a first chair attorney and one murder jury trial as a second chair attorney from voir dire to closing argument.