Brett Bartlett is a partner in the Labor and Employment and Wage and Hour Litigation Departments of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. A Chambers-rated practitioner, Brett Bartlett is chair of Seyfarth Shaw's Labor & Employment Department in Atlanta, a member of the Department's National Steering Committee, and a leader of the firm's National Wage & Hour Litigation Practice Group. Mr. Bartlett, who is also one of three editors-in-chief of the definitive 912-page treatise on wage and hour litigation, Wage & Hour Collective and Class Litigation, devotes the majority of his practice to the defense of complex federal and state wage and hour cases. He also provides preventative counseling and change management assistance to employers wishing to limit their exposure to investigation and litigation under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the state laws that require employers to pay overtime and minimum wages to their employees.

Mr. Bartlett represents employers across the United States in court litigation and administrative matters arising under federal and state wage and hour laws. He has defended more than 100 class and collective actions brought by employees alleging entitlement to unpaid overtime and minimum wage in the staffing, transportation, financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, newspaper, insurance, medical, pharmacy, retail, and real estate holding industries, among others. Those actions have ranged from the most complex, brought as hybrid actions under state and federal law and involving thousands of employees, to the more basic, asserting individual claims for overtime under the FLSA. Mr. Bartlett has also defended dozens of investigation and audits by state and federal wage and hour departments, ranging from single-day, single-location “on-sites” to years’ long, multi-state investigations involving the federal Wage and Hour Division, enforcement actions by the Secretary of Labor, negotiations with federal solicitors, and the engagement of agency representatives to testify or argue on his clients’ behalves. Mr. Bartlett leverages a mutual respect between his teams and those of the enforcing agencies to secure the right result for our firm’s clients. And of course Mr. Bartlett also provides preventative audits, counseling, and training to employers wishing to limit their exposure to those actions – and to state and federal administrative agency investigation.

In addition, in recent years, Mr. Bartlett has helped employers in various industries to grapple with an increasing trend of Rule 23 class actions involving allegations that an employer breached an actual or implied contract by failing to pay commissions, service charges, and other types of compensation. Faced with this attempt by the plaintiffs’ bar to make an end-run around federal and state wage and hour laws, Mr. Bartlett has assisted our clients to manage these pay-related conflicts that strike to the very core of a business’s operations and its ability to remain successful in a challenging economy.

Mr. Bartlett frequently speaks at seminars and conferences regarding employers’ compliance with wage and hour matters, contributes to such publications as the Fair Labor Standards Act, Cumulative Supplement, ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law (2002-2009), and has been quoted in several newspapers and professional journals. He also is a member of the ABA/BNA Fair Labor Standards Legislative Committee. Prior to beginning his management-side employment law practice, he chaired his law school’s moot court board, argued in the Wagner Labor & Employment Moot Court Competition, and was awarded the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Labor & Employment Law. In December 2011, Mr. Bartlett was named one of Georgia's top attorneys in the area of Labor and Employment in Georgia Trend magazine's "Legal Elite" 9th annual listing.

Beyond the practice of law, Mr. Bartlett is an active member on the Board of Directors for the Metro-Atlanta March of Dimes. The prevention of infant prematurity and mortality is a cause near and dear to his heart, and he devotes considerable attention to championing the March of Dimes’ good efforts locally and nationally.