About Us

Chris Stief is the managing partner of the Philadelphia office, and is Chair of the Firm's Employee Defection and Trade Secrets Practice Group.

Chris represents employers in a range of labor and employment matters, and has a national practice focusing employee defection and recruitment, including litigating injunction and damages actions relating to: covenants not to compete, non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements, unfair competition, employee raiding, trade secrets, duty of loyalty, the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, the Economic Espionage Act, and state trade secrets and unfair competition statutes.

Chris has handled more than 500 employee defection and recruitment matters in approximately 65 state and federal courts in 45 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, as well as matters arising out of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Most cases involved applications for temporary or preliminary injunctions, along with damages claims. He has represented clients in numerous industries, including securities brokerage, private banking, online retailing, radio, software, computer sales and services, consulting, medicine, insurance brokerage, insurance carriers, employee placement and staffing, publishing, advertising, trucking, direct response television, government contracting, and mortgage lending and securitization.

In addition to litigating, Chris drafts restrictive covenants and helps clients develop programs to protect competitive assets against employee defection, and to minimize risks when hiring from competitors.

Chris is "AV" Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell and is a past Co-Chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Committee.

Chris is a contributor to the firm's Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Blog as well as the Cross-Border Employer Blog, and frequently speaks and provides press commentary on both U.S. domestic and international restrictive covenant issues.

Chris has been selected for inclusion in Who's Who Legal USA – Management Labour & Employment by the researchers at the International Who's Who publication. He was also listed in Chambers USA in 2015.

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