Lori Thomas is a highly accomplished labor and employment attorney with over 20 years of experience providing employment counseling and advice to a wide range of companies on day-to-day matters including background checks, hiring decisions, employee performance matters, discipline and termination decisions, complaint investigations and responses, accommodation and leave requests and wage and hour issues.

About Lori

Formerly Senior Employment Counsel for a national financial institution with more than 27,000 employees, Lori draws on her in-house counsel experience to help clients address real world, day to day problems efficiently and with an eye toward minimizing risk and reducing cost.  Lori understands that sometimes the strictly legal answer is not the full answer, and that the best legal solution is not always the best business solution.  Clients rely on Lori to take into consideration legal, business and additional factors, assess risk, and present the range of possibilities so they can make the best informed decision.

Practical and succinct in her approach, Lori is adept at providing clients with timely need-to-know answers that help them effectively respond to the business pressures of their positions.  She partners with her clients as a trusted advisor to ensure that they have the factual information and legal analysis needed to make informed decisions within critical time constraints.

Lori is also experienced in guiding employers through large scale workforce restructurings and reductions.  She enjoys partnering with Human Resources professionals and business leaders to truly solve problems, finding the best result for the least cost.  Her experience spans the full spectrum of employment matters including investigation and response to government agency charges and defense of employment litigation claims under Title VII, ADA, ADEA, FMLA, SOX whistleblower, FCRA, state fair employment practice laws, as well as class and collective actions.

Industries & Expertise
Labor & Employment
Practice Areas
Business Litigation
Employment Law

Education

  • University of Virginia School of Law J.D.
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University B.S.

Admissions

  • Georgia
  • Virginia

Involvement

Lori is the founder of Cruciform Life International Ministries, a non-profit organization that increases access to nutrition, education, medical care and economic opportunity for vulnerable persons in Uganda. Working closely with members of the Ugandan community, Cruciform provides a weekly feeding program for children in nutritional need. Through Cruciform’s sponsorship program, children from families that cannot afford to pay for school fees and other requirements are able to attend school. Cruciform also helps families meet
medical and dental needs and conducts community outreach programs that focus on health, Bible studies for youth, home-improvements and small business grants.

In 2020, Cruciform opened the first community library in the area which serves over 2,000 people each month. The library also functions as a community center
offering chess, art and computer lessons to children, and financial and English literacy classes for adults. Thanks to the donation of a container of books, Cruciform is in the process of establishing more community libraries in other communities.

Contributions

“New Federal Pregnancy Regulations: Five Key Takeaways and Five Key Action Steps for Employers” Daily Report from Law.com, June 5, 2024