Kurt has a national practice focused on complex labor and employment matters and related litigation. Kurt helps businesses of all sizes solve their complex labor and employment challenges. He counsels clients on all aspects of labor-management relations, including representation elections, collective bargaining and strikes and lockouts, and also advises clients in strategic employment and human relations matters. Kurt litigates labor and employment cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts around the country and before the NLRB and EEOC.

Kurt has been recognized nationally as a 2022 Top 10 Labor Lawyer by Benchmark Litigation and as a leader in Labor and Employment by Chambers USA Virginia. A recognized thought leader in traditional labor-management relations, Kurt has testified twice before the US House of Representatives on introducing reforms to US labor policy and has represented many of the country’s most influential trade associations in amicus curiae and other filings in labor cases of national significance.

Kurt also has extensive experience advising employers facing nontraditional organizing and corporate campaign activity from labor unions and other NGOs. He has helped clients develop campaign management strategies and litigation responses to corporate campaign activities, including the groundbreaking use of civil RICO to terminate union corporate campaign attacks.

Kurt is a chapter editor of the Developing Labor Law as well as a contributing author to the  Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives blog. Kurt also participates in a number of the firm’s pro bono programs. He is a past co-chair of the firm’s veterans pro bono committee and has participated in the Wills for Heroes program, preparing wills, powers of attorney and medical directives for Virginia first responders. Kurt has also participated in the Lawyers Serving Warriors program, representing soldiers injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom in disability and medical retirement proceedings before military medical and physical evaluation boards. Prior to joining Hunton Andrews Kurth, Kurt served on active duty as a lawyer in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He was also certified by the National Football League Players Association as a player representative and negotiated several contracts with NFL clubs.

Bar Admissions

Education
JD, Temple University Beasley School of Law, 2000

BA, Dickinson College, Distinguished Military Graduate, 1997

• Advised numerous national and international companies and trade groups facing union corporate campaigns and other non-traditional union organizing activity, including customer and product boycotts, public relations attacks and shareholder activism. 
• Represented international companies in civil RICO actions against international labor unions and related defendants; litigation resulted in groundbreaking legal precedent relating to the use of racketeering laws to respond to union corporate campaigns. Sodexo, Inc. v. SEIU, Case 1:11-cv-276 (E.D.Va. 2011); Smithfield Foods v. UFCW, 585 F. Supp. 2d 789 (E.D. Va. 2008).
• Represented Fortune 500 company in defense of class action employment discrimination and sexual harassment case. 
• Advised Fortune 500 company facing 26 concurrently filed unfair labor practice charges involving numerous bargaining units and collective bargaining agreements; obtained withdrawal, dismissal or deferral of 25 out of 26 charges. 
• Won reversal of NLRB ruling that employee strike over retention of supervisory personnel was protected under the National Labor Relations Act; decision created new Fourth Circuit precedent relating to the scope of protected, concerted activity under the Act. 
• Advised employers in the health care, financial, and manufacturing industries in both offensive and defensive trade secrets and unfair competition cases, and negotiated numerous executive employment and separation agreements.

• American Bar Association, Committee on Labor & Employment and Subcommittee on Antitrust, RICO and Labor Law
• Virginia Bar Association

• BTI “Client Service All-Star” for corporate counsel, 2017  
• Associates to Watch, Labor & Employment (Virginia), Chambers USA, America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, 2013
• Leader in the Field, Labor & Employment (Virginia), Chambers USA, America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, 2012

• Three Key Things in Health Care

  By Kurt Larkin |September 2020

• Coronavirus and the NLRA – Unilateral Changes in Emergency Situations

  By Kurt Larkin |March 2020

• Clearing the Path to Unionizing America’s Workforce: The NLRB’s New Rules Governing Union Elections and Bargaining Units, 36 Energy & Min. L. Inst. Ch. 27
• Dues Checkoff: The Board Giveth and the Board Taketh Away, ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law, Vol. 29, No. 2
• Organized Labor: Coming Soon To A Corporate Board Near You, Washington Times
• RICO: A New Tool for Employers Facing Union Corporate Campaigns?, Corporate Counsel
• New York's $15 minimum wage hike: Who's behind it and why – and what may be coming next, InsideCounsel
• Redefining the Employer-Employee Relationship, A Quarterly Legal Perspective on Today’s Top-of-Mind Issues, The Advisory Board Company
• Section 302: Drawing The Line For Employers, Unions, Law360
• Returning Balance to the NLRB, Law360
• Fifth Circuit Overturns NLRB's Dress Code Decision, The National Law Review
• Expanded Joint-Employer Rule Could ‘Upend’ Franchise World, QSR Magazine
• Three Key Things in Health Care
• 5 NLRA Changes To Make Nonunion Employers Wary In 2024, Law360
• If At First You Don’t Succeed: National Labor Relations Board Readopts Highly Controversial “Independent Contractor” Standard, Employee Benefit Plan Review
• How to Escape Joint-Employer Status under the NLRA with Concrete Evidence, Construction Business Owner
• Labor Organizing in Retail: 2022 Review, Retail Industry 2022 Year in Review
• 4th Circ. Joint Employer Test Is Incredibly Broad, Law360
• Labor Organizing in Retail: Conditions Remain for Continued Momentum, Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation, vol. 3 no. 2