Sam Fulkerson

Practice Areas

Employment Law, Litigation, Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets, Wage and Hour

Career

Sam is the Oklahoma City Managing Shareholder, a member of the firm’s Management Committee and co-chair of the Energy Practice Group. Sam has been included for the past twenty plus years in Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business; The Best Lawyers in America (employment law – management labor law – management; labor and employment litigation), which also selected him as Oklahoma City Employment Lawyer of the Year for 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2021; and Oklahoma Super Lawyers, which also has named him to its list of “Top 50 Oklahoma Lawyers” each year since 2012. In 2019 Sam was elected a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, only the second Oklahoma attorney to be selected.

Sam represents management in all areas of employment law. Including counseling clients on best practices and compliance; employee training; counseling on disciplinary, organizational and general business issues; policy drafting and implementation, including multi-state employer policies, drug testing, and dispute resolution programs; issues arising from reorganizations, reductions-in-force, mergers, sales, acquisitions and board disputes; and workplace investigations, including board misconduct.

Sam has extensive litigation experience, including a 2020 $112 million federal jury verdict in a trade secrets trial; and in the past four years he has been lead counsel in lawsuits in federal district court in Atlanta, Nashville, Brownsville, Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, and New Mexico, including as lead counsel in six FLSA collective actions; the state courts of Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma and California; and administrative agencies in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, California, Oregon and Washington. Sam also has experience in mediating and arbitrating employment disputes before the American Arbitration Association, the EEOC, and in federal court.

Sam’s non-litigation practice includes representation of legislative bodies and special interest groups, and he frequently drafts proposed legislation and reviews legislative proposals affecting the workplace.

Sam trains and lectures frequently on employment law topics in Oklahoma and elsewhere, he has published scholarly articles in the Oklahoma Law Review and the Society for Human Resource Management Legal Report, and was the primary author of “Age Discrimination in the Workplace: A Primer for Human Resource Professionals,” Society for Human Resource Management.

Professional Memberships

Oklahoma Bar Association (Former Chair, Labor and Employment Law Section)

American Bar Association

Federal Bar Association

Equal Access to Justice Commissioner, appointed by Oklahoma Supreme Court, 2020 – present

Merit Protection Commissioner, Gubernatorial Appointment, 2016 to 2019

Homeless Alliance, Board of Directors

Cristo Rey Catholic High School, Board of Directors