Kimberly Harding

Practice Areas

Kim Harding is a partner in Nixon Peabody’s Labor & Employment group, the deputy leader of the firm’s nationwide Litigation Department, and the leader of the firm's Labor Relations team. Her practice is a hybrid of traditional labor relations and employment litigation and counseling for employers of every size and in almost every industry. Kim’s experience as a manager of Nixon Peabody’s own team of litigation attorneys informs the counsel she provides her clients and gives her unique insight into the challenges they face in managing their own workforces.

Career

EMPLOYMENT LITIGATION & COUNSELING

Kim regularly defends employers in state and federal courts and before state and federal administrative agencies from claims alleging violations of employment statutes, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the New York Labor Law, and the New York Human Rights Law. She has negotiated many favorable settlements of wage and hour suits, including putative class and collective actions, discrimination and whistleblower claims, and litigation of non-compete covenants.

LABOR RELATIONS

Kim counsels unionized employers with respect to the development of bargaining strategies and the cost and negotiation of labor agreements. In doing so, she is always cognizant of the fact that the development of a labor relationship is a full-time job that requires attention, careful planning and deliberate actions. Kim is committed to understanding her clients’ workplaces and needs to ensure that we avoid piecemeal approaches to labor relations, which tend to be both shortsighted and ineffective.

Kim’s labor relations practice also involves advising on anti-organizing campaigns and strategies, and representing management in the arbitration of labor disputes and in litigation of claims under the National Labor Relations Act and the Labor Management Relations Act. She has defended Section 301 claims, and both prosecuted and defended unfair labor practice charges.

WITHDRAWAL LIABILITY ARBITRATION

Kim has extensive experience negotiating settlements and arbitrating disputes under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), particularly those arising from employers’ withdrawals from multi-employer pension funds. She has challenged the rates used by funds or calculating withdrawal liability to leverage favorable settlements for clients, and has substantial familiarity with ERISA’s various exceptions to the imposition of withdrawal liability, including, inter alia, the sale of assets exception under Section 4204 and the building and construction exemption.

Professional Memberships

• Serves on the City Planning Commission for the City of Rochester, the HR Committee for the Willow Domestic Violence Center, and the national board for the National Human Resources Association.

• Former chair of the board of trustees for the National Susan B. Anthony Museum (where she also served for six years as a trustee, vice chair, chair of the Governance Committee, and member of various committees), and former director-at-large, programming, for the Rochester affiliate of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.

• Graduate of the Leadership Rochester Class of 2020.

• Member of the New York State Bar Association.

Personal

American University, Washington College of Law, J.D., summa cum laude, Order of the Coif

Syracuse University, B.A., summa cum laude