Mark W Bakker

Practice Areas

Employment & Labor Law

Employee Benefits Litigation

Employees & Technology

ERISA & Group Insurance Litigation

Litigation

Product Liability

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Farm Credit Services

Experience

Mark Bakker is a recognized employment law litigator and trusted legal advisor in employment and other business-related matters. He represents clients in federal and state courts throughout North and South Carolina, arbitration panels, before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission and other state and federal agencies. He provides daily proactive advice and counseling to employers on many human resources issues. In addition to advising a wide variety of established corporations, Mark advises HR consulting firms, management teams, entrepreneurs, start-up companies, and staffing companies.

Mark strives to be an efficient and creative conflict resolver, not only for his clients but for other litigants. He has a robust mediation and dispute resolution practice and has been certified to mediate by the South Carolina state and federal courts.

Typical engagements include:

- Discrimination and wage-and-hour lawsuits

- Charges and claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies

- Restrictive covenant disputes

- Employee raiding and recruitment

- ERISA and employee benefit claims

- Counseling re: terminations, discipline, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and layoffs

- Employment and executive contracts

- Employee handbooks, policies and dispute resolution systems

- In-house seminars and employment-related CLEs

He clerked for the Honorable Eugene E. Siler, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Court in 1995-96 and the Honorable William B. Traxler, Jr. for the U.S. District Court of South Carolina in 1997.