Carolyn A. Knox

Shareholder || San Francisco

Carolyn Knox is a member of the Cross-Border Practice group, supporting our clients with labor and employment law matters in more than 100 countries. Carolyn assists clients with creating global solutions and country-specific solutions, with expertise across a variety of jurisdictions including South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Carolyn has broad experience in both US employment and benefits law, as well has cross-border employment issues. Over the course of her 20+-year career as an employment lawyer, she has practiced in the United States, Europe, and Brazil. In her practice, she regularly provides advice and counsel on cross-border human resources law issues to human resources professionals and in-house employment counsel managing workforces outside of their home country jurisdictions.

Her expertise includes development and roll-outs of global and regional handbooks, the localization and implementation of employment policies and procedures, codes of conduct, workplace audits, employment agreements, commercial representative agreements, workplace investigations, employee and non-employee benefit plans, hiring and termination issues, and M&A due diligence. In addition, her strong litigation background enables Carolyn to identify issues and assist clients in managing litigation outside the United States.

Learn more about Carolyn A. Knox

With more than 20 years of experience as a management-side labor, employment and benefits lawyer, Carolyn has had the opportunity to guide US and international employers through the ever-changing global employment law landscape. Her focus has always been on helping international companies find strategic and business-oriented solutions to their cross-border employment issues.

During her US-based legal career, Carolyn has worked with large employers on general day-to-day advice and counsel, workplace investigations, development of workplace training programs, workplace audits, and provided litigation strategy development and representation in litigation of workplace harassment and discrimination, FMLA and state leave issues, as well as representation of large pension and benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

In Brazil, her practice included advice and counsel on the full range of employment issues faced by multi-national companies, as well as assisting with due diligence on labor issues associated with mergers and acquisitions.  In addition, working with her former firm’s corporate and M&A practice, Carolyn assisted foreign companies looking to establish operations in Brazil. She recently developed a keen interest in the development and implementation of Brazil’s new anti-corruption law and how to facilitate effective workplace investigations.

Carolyn has been a frequent speaker to human resources associations, in-house counsel associations and bar associations on local and cross-border employment and benefits issues. She is active in key international legal organizations. While practicing in San Francisco, Brussels and Brazil, she has worked and traveled throughout Europe, Asia/Pacific (with substantial time in China and India), and Latin America.

Languages: English, Portuguese and French

Education

Admission to Practice

Professional Activities

  • American Bar Association, Section of Labor & Employment
  • American Bar Association, Section of International Law, U.S. Lawyers Abroad Committee cochair
  • International Bar Association (IBA), Employment and Industrial Relations Committee, Law Firm Management Committee, Latin America Regional Forum
  • Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA), Employment & Immigration Law Committee – vice-chair
  • XBHR (Global Forum for Cross-border Human Resources)
  • Bar Association of San Francisco, Section of International Law & Practice – chair

Speeches

International Employment Lawyers Woman Leader

Insights by Carolyn A. Knox