LawrenceQueen

Where the firm puts its attention

LawrenceQueen works out of Richmond, Virginia, and its work stays inside one area of law: employment. The firm has handled employment matters since 1994. That single focus shapes how it describes itself, and it holds up across the site's pages.

The core practice areas are wrongful termination, discrimination, sexual harassment, wage and hour claims, whistleblower retaliation, and non-compete and employment contract disputes. The firm also lists work for federal and state employees, benefit questions, disability discrimination and workplace accommodations, family and medical leave, professional license defense, and pregnancy and childbirth retaliation. That is a wide set of workplace issues for one practice group to cover.

One detail sets the firm apart from general practices that add employment work as a sideline. Its attorneys limit their work to this field. In my opinion, that kind of narrowing tends to help clients whose problems sit squarely in employment law, because the same questions come up again and again.

Who the work serves

LawrenceQueen represents both sides of the employment relationship. It takes on workers who bring claims, and it also advises employers and businesses. The firm covers the greater Richmond region.

Two of the named attorneys handle matters in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies. Mark Passero's profile notes both individual claims and class actions, spanning wage and hour disputes, whistleblower retaliation, discrimination, wrongful discharge, breach of contract, and restrictive covenant issues. Ashley R. Passero handles discrimination, harassment, retaliation, misclassification, whistleblower claims, and wage and hour matters, along with workplace contract and tort claims. The range of forums the firm names, from agency proceedings up through federal court, gives a sense of how far a case can travel.

How the team is built

The site names six attorneys and gives each a clear role. Barbara Queen is the Managing Partner. Ashley R. Passero is a Shareholder, Mark Passero is a Partner, and Lisa K. Lawrence sits as Of Counsel. Alicia Penn-Taylor and K. Ashtin Porter, who goes by Kat, round out the group as Associate Attorneys.

The firm reports over 85 years of combined experience across its attorneys. That figure fits a group with senior partners and a founder still connected to the practice. The mix of partners, a shareholder, an of counsel, and two associates suggests a structure where newer lawyers work alongside people who have spent decades in the field.

The founder and the managing partner

Lisa K. Lawrence is a founder of the firm and an employment lawyer in Richmond. She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia and her law degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary. Her career has centered on employment law, representing employees and employers in the public and private sectors on matters including grievances and severance.

Barbara Queen, the Managing Partner, earned a bachelor's degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law. Early in her career she interned with the New York Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York. She joined the Lawrence firm in 2002 and has concentrated on employment law since.

The associates

Alicia M. Penn-Taylor practices in employment and labor, employment litigation, and appellate matters. That appellate note is worth flagging, since it points to work that continues after a trial court ruling. Kaley Porter practices at the firm as well. The site gives less detail on her background than on the senior attorneys, so a prospective client would want to ask about her caseload directly.

Professional memberships

The firm states that its attorneys belong to the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Virginia Employment Lawyers Association, and the Employment Law Section of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association. These are membership groups organized around the practice of employment law. Membership is not an award, and I read it as a sign of where the attorneys spend their professional time.

As a reviewer, I find the consistency here useful. A firm that names its practice groups, lists its attorneys by role, and ties itself to employment law bar sections gives a reader something concrete to check. The picture matches across the home page, the about page, and the team page.

What a prospective client can weigh

The strongest signal from the site is focus. Employment law is the whole of the practice, and the named attorneys describe their work in that language on every profile. For someone facing a firing, a harassment claim, a wage dispute, or a non-compete, that concentration is a reasonable thing to look for.

The site is lighter on some points. It does not publish detailed bios for every attorney, and it does not list case outcomes or verdict figures. A caller would do well to ask each attorney about relevant experience and about who would handle the day-to-day of the matter. The firm's Richmond office serves the surrounding region, and both employees and employers are within its stated scope. The founding year on record is 1994, and the firm has stayed in employment law across that span.