Mark M. Whitney is a highly respected advisor and advocate, problem solver, and litigator known for achieving practical, effective solutions to employment disputes and counseling executives through a wide variety of workplace issues and job transitions. Mark is also an experienced trial lawyer, who will pursue a dispute to a jury verdict when necessary. Mark cut his teeth in the Wall Street and State Street large law firm environments. He is the frequent recipient of executive and other referrals from the largest firms in New England and beyond. 

A veteran employment lawyer with more than 30 years’ experience in the field, Mark founded WLG in 2017. Prior to that, Mark was a senior equity partner at Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP in Boston, one of the oldest and largest management-side employment law boutiques in the country. Prior to that, Mark gained experience at two AmLaw 100 firms in New York City and Boston, and at the largest law firm in New Hampshire. Throughout his pre-WLG career, Mark focused on employment law and a variety of complex commercial litigation.  Mark spent the vast majority of his practice representing employers, insurance companies, business owners and executives.

Mark has a broad spectrum of employment law experience.  He has successfully handled cases before administrative agencies and the courts in disputes arising under the myriad state and federal laws that regulate the employment relationship. An important part of Mark’s practice has been helping clients prevent such disputes by providing consulting services on a variety of employment law issues, such as risk management practices, personnel policies, and statutory compliance. Mark also conducts employment law-related risk management training for executives/management and employees.

Over the years Mark developed substantial experience in the areas of restrictive covenants, trade secret and intellectual property protection, and unfair competition law. He helps companies protect their valuable trade secrets and business relationships. Mark assists clients with prevention and strategic advice, including development and implementation of critical policies, best practices, key agreements (non-compete, nonsolicitation, nondisclosure, inventions and developments, separation, and other employment-related agreements), hiring and other business strategy decisions. Mark has represented companies in court and arbitration proceedings concerning disputes over misappropriation of trade secrets, employee raiding, breaches of restrictive covenants, violations of fiduciary duty/duty of loyalty and related business torts, or other methods of unfair competition.

Prior to starting the blog on this website, Mark previously authored the New England Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Digest, a blog that covered developments in the law of Restrictive Covenants, Trade Secrets, Unfair Competition, Employee Mobility, and Business Torts in the six New England states. Mark is a member of the Advisory Board of Brooklyn Law School’s Trade Secrets Institute. He is a former member of the Trade Secrets and Interference with Contracts Committee of the ABA’s Section of Intellectual Property Law, and previously authored the First Circuit Trade Secret Law Update for the ABA IP law section’s annual meeting. Mark previously served for several years as the editor of the Massachusetts chapter of the leading national treatise on noncompetition law. [Covenants Not to Compete: A State By State Survey (BNA 2004)]

At WLG, Mark puts his years of defense-oriented knowledge and experience to work on behalf of individuals.  Mark assists individuals who may have been subjected to an adverse employment action and prosecutes claims based on unlawful discrimination and other employment-related claims.