Mark P. Tilkens is the Office Managing Principal of the Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offices of Jackson Lewis P.C. The Madison and Milwaukee office teams are focused on providing immediate responsiveness to urgent client needs and around the clock coverage with multi-discipline practitioners who cover all labor and employment matters.
Mr. Tilkens has successfully represented clients before judges, juries, and administrative agencies throughout the country. He has tried more than 100 arbitrations through to final decisions and handles high-level strategy and trial decisions for clients in discrimination cases across various industries. Mr. Tilkens is often called upon to provide representation and strategic counsel in high-stakes labor and employment matters and other crisis situations.
Mr. Tilkens’ legal experience includes counseling and representing employers across the country in traditional labor law matters, including the most difficult collective bargaining and "bet the company" cases, situations, arbitrations, strikes, replacing strikers, union organizing campaigns, elections, acquisitions of unionized companies, and proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.
Mr. Tilkens defends employers in cases before the U.S. Department of Labor and in federal court actions involving labor relations; investigating and defending the most complex employment discrimination claims and class action wage and hour cases, including donning and doffing, meal and rest break cases, and employee misclassification disputes. He also guides employers on all issues related to employee performance, disciplinary and discharge decisions, reductions in force, and enforceability of post-employment restrictive covenants, as well as advising employers in all aspects of the employer employee relationship, including wage and hour, employment contracts, workers’ compensation, disability issues, internal investigations, and policy formulation/review.
Mr. Tilkens began his labor and employment practice after a decorated career in law enforcement, during which he received specialized training in interviewing skills, spent hundreds of hours in the courtroom and gained labor relations experience as a union executive board member where he worked closely with management officials during the development of internal investigation policies. Mr. Tilkens was recognized annually by prosecutors for outstanding performance in the line of duty, including being awarded Top Cop of the Year, the Teamwork Award, and Investigator Commendation for a successful prosecution of street gang violence.
