Position: Partner Practice Group: Labor & Employment Bar Admissions: Colorado, Illinois Education: Ohio State University, J.D., 1994 Summa Cum Laude Northwestern University, B.S., 1991 Telephone: 720-904-6037 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Practice Overview

Christine Lamb is a founding partner of Friesen Lamb LLP. Her practice focuses predominantly on defending businesses in employment lawsuits and counseling employers on personnel issues. Ms. Lamb has represented a wide variety of employers ranging from start-up businesses to Fortune 100 companies, including U.S. Bank, U-Haul, Oppenheimer Funds, Home Depot, TeleTech, Sears/K-Mart, Sun Microsystems/Oracle and the University of Colorado.

Ms. Lamb has over 16 years of experience representing employers and employees in a broad range of employment disputes. She frequently appears before the state and federal courts of Colorado and has also represented clients in matters before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the United States Department of Labor, Colorado Wage & Hour Division, United States Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the Colorado Department of Labor & Employment (CDLE). Ms. Lamb also provides advice and counseling to clients on personnel policies and employee manuals, employment contracts, executive compensation, non-compete and trade secret agreements, and harassment investigations.

Ms. Lamb has extensive experience representing clients in employment matters involving:

• Race, sex, national origin and religious discrimination claims under Title VII, §1981, the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)
• Age discrimination claims under The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)
• Disability discrimination and failure to accommodate claims under The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Employee leave of absence issues under The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
• Wage and overtime disputes under the The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and other wage and overtime disputes
• Misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of non-competes, breach of confidentiality agreements, breach of fiduciary duty
• Other state law claims including employee fraud and theft claims, wrongful discharge in violation of public policy, breach of employment contract, employee handbook claims, outrageous conduct, intentional interference, negligent hiring and supervision

Representative Cases

• Represented a client in a race discrimination lawsuit brought by an African American employee who was passed over for promotion.Following Ms. Lamb’s cross-examination of Plaintiff’s expert witness on the first day of trial, Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed all claims.
• Represented an engineering consulting company in asserting claims against a group of former employees who departed with confidential information intending to take a company business unit and start their own firm.Following a three week jury trial, the jury awarded actual and punitive damages totaling $3M. Harris Group Inc. v. Robinson, Courtney, Neff and Luminate, 209 P.3d 1188 (Colo. App. 2009).
• Defended a national bank against claims of age and gender discrimination, retaliation and breach of contract.After winning complete summary judgment on behalf of her client, Ms. Lamb successfully defended the judgment on appeal to the Tenth Circuit. Timmerman v. U.S. Bank, 483 F.3d 1106 (10th Cir. 2007).
• Assisted a national retailer in responding to EEOC charges filed by a group of thirteen current and former employees alleging gender and age discrimination.Ms. Lamb helped navigate the EEOC process and obtained a decision by the agency not to pursue the claims as an enforcement action.
• Defended a client in a multi-plaintiff discrimination lawsuit alleging age and race discrimination.Ms. Lamb won summary judgment on all claims by all Plaintiffs, convincing the Court that the Plaintiffs had not sufficiently exhausted the jurisdictional prerequisites for bringing the claims and failed to present sufficient evidence of discrimination.Alvariza v. Home Depot, 506 F. Supp. 2d 451 (D. Colo. 2007); Alvariza v. Home Depot, 2007 WL 779829 (D. Colo. March 14, 2007); Alvariza v. Home Depot, 2007 WL 794416 (D. Colo. March 14, 2007); Alvariza v. Home Depot, 2007 WL 794187 (D. Colo. March 14, 2007).
• Headed a sexual harassment investigation on behalf of a large national company into allegations by multiple employees claiming harassment by management employees.Following an EEOC investigation, Ms. Lamb negotiated a successful resolution of all claims by all Plaintiffs.

Recent Speeches and Publications

• New Developments In Employment Law – the basics and beyond (2005)
• EEOC investigations: Understanding the Process and Using it To Your Company’s Advantage (2005)
• Little Mistakes, Big Consequences, how to avoid the most costly Human Resources Mistakes (2006)
• Great Job, You’re Fired!How to Minimize Risk in Employee Discipline and Terminations (2008)
• Recent Changes to the FMLA, What you need to know (2009)
• Employment Law in Up and Down Economies (2009)

Honors and Awards

• AV rated by Martindale Hubbell, the highest rating available
• Order of the Coif, Ohio State University School of Law

Community Involvement and Personal Interests

Christine is a member of the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, a non-profit devoted to making every woman in Colorado economically self-sufficient, and putting every girl on the path to economic self-sufficiency. She is also active in Girls, Inc., a national nonprofit youth organization that provides educational programs to millions of American girls, Denver SCORES, a program for urban youth using soccer as a building block for teaching academics, social skills and teamwork and she coaches for and advises the Colorado Fusion Soccer Club. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her twins, listening to live music and practicing yoga.