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One Citizens Plaza, 8th Floor
Providence RI 02903-1345
TEL: 401.274.7200
FAX: 401.751.0604
Practice Areas
Education
  • Suffolk University (J.D., 1987)
  • Rhode Island College (B.A., 1982)
Bar & Court Admissions
  • Rhode Island
  • United States District Court,District of Rhode Island

Robert P. Brooks is Chairman of the firm’s Labor and Employment Law Group.  He represents management in all facets of labor relations and employment law in the public and private sectors. 

Mr. Brooks’ experience in the labor and employment law area ranges from counseling employers on day to day personnel administration, to major managerial decision making concerning the labor employment law considerations of corporate acquisitions and reductions in force.  He also counsels employers on such complex administrative law issues as OSHA compliance and wage and hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Mr. Brooks also regularly and successfully handles collective bargaining negotiations and the defense of union organizing campaigns. He has successfully represented employers in employment discrimination matters, and a wide variety of labor arbitration and administrative proceedings. In addition, he lectures frequently to groups and private companies on many of the issues facing human resource professionals on a daily basis.

Prior to becoming associated with Adler Pollock & Sheehan, Mr. Brooks served as administrative assistant and deputy chief of staff to the Mayor of Providence from 1982 to 1987.

Mr. Brooks is President of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence.   He also serves on the Board of Directors of Leadership Rhode Island and is a 2003 graduate of the Leadership Rhode Island program.  He is the recipient of the RI Bar Association’s 2002 Dorothy Lohmann Community Service Award, given in recognition for his work with the Boys and Girls Clubs.  He serves on the AP&S Executive Committee and is a member of its Diversity Committee.

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Significant Matters

  • Successfully represented of numerous employers in collective bargaining negotiations, achieving for management important language concessions regarding management rights and concessions on the scope of what work is performed by the bargaining unit.
  • Assisted a state agency that was acquiring a municipal agency with all the various labor and employment law issues that arose as a result.  The employees of the municipal agency who were employed in two bargaining units were transferred to the payroll of five different bargaining units.  Mr. Brooks was able to successfully navigate the merger of the two units of employees employed by the municipal agency into the five private sector units employed by the stage agency’s management company without any disruption in the newly-merged operation.
  • Devised a winning strategy for an employer interested in establishing a union-free workplace by planning a strategy to decertify a major labor union as the bargaining representative of the employer’s employees.
  • Negotiated an agreement on behalf of a municipal employer with two labor unions that allowed the municipality to hire a private company to design, build, and operate a new, state of the art facility for the municipality, thereby also achieving millions of dollars in savings.
  • Successfully represented one of the State’s largest nursing homes in a union organizing campaign in which the union was defeated in the election by a wide margin.
  • Successful defense of employers in matters involving race discrimination, age discrimination, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and disability discrimination before Human Rights agencies in the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Honors & Distinctions

  • Recognized in the 2006 - 2010 Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers as one of the "Leaders in Rhode Island" and as one of the state’s best in Labor and Employment Law
  • Selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2007-2010 editions of The Best Lawyers in America®  in the field of Labor and Employment Law
  • Selected as a Rhode Island Super Lawyer, 2007-2009, an honor that recognizes him as a leader in the legal community
  • AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell, highest rating given to attorneys.

Professional Affiliations

  • Active, Rhode Island Bar Association’s Labor Law Committee for the past six years, and served as its Chair for one year
  • Member, American Bar Association.

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