Expanding its recently opened office in Denver, Fox Rothschild welcomes Matthew J. Rita as a partner in its Litigation Department.
Rita has two decades of experience serving as a trusted adviser and dedicated advocate for his clients on a variety of complex litigation and labor and employment matters. His addition bolsters the firm’s existing nationwide bench of nearly 250 trial attorneys.
“Matt’s fluency in complex commercial and labor and employment disputes complements and broadens the depth of services we offer clients in Colorado and elsewhere,” said Neal S. Cohen, managing partner of the firm’s Denver office.
“While we have had a Fox presence in Denver for only a short period of time, we are excited to be quickly adding capabilities and strengths that will solidify the Fox footprint in the Rocky Mountain business and legal community,” Cohen said. “Matt’s experience as well as his connections to companies and organizations through his legal and volunteer work will help us continue to raise the firm’s profile and enhance our scope of services.”
Rita has experience resolving a broad range of disputes related to noncompetition and other restrictive covenants, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) whistleblower complaints, charges of age discrimination, harassment allegations, trade secret disputes, qui tam litigation and contract cases.
Clients depend on Rita to represent them in trial and appellate courts as well as before federal and state agencies and in arbitration and alternative dispute resolution proceedings. He has successfully secured a multimillion-dollar jury verdict on a breach-of-contract counterclaim, defended a high-profile lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and obtained a temporary restraining order to block unlawful competition. Most recently, Rita prevailed at trial on behalf of a Colorado hospital that had been accused of breaching the duties owed to a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) limited liability company. Following a bench trial, the judge ruled in favor of Rita’s client and against the plaintiff, which had been seeking millions of dollars in alleged damages.
Rita is an active volunteer in the Denver legal community and beyond, serving on several litigation section committees of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations and has been heavily involved in advancing public legal education efforts by volunteering as a classroom presenter in Denver public schools. Additionally, Rita is a roundtable and summit participant for the Center for Legal Inclusiveness, and he is a contributor and speaker for the Our Courts program. He currently sits on the Board of the Colorado Judicial Institute.
A frequent author and speaker, Rita has presented national webinars on caregivers in the modern workplace and expert discovery in federal court, in addition to several presentations on Federal Rule of Evidence 502 and ethical issues in the age of electronic discovery. His most recent published articles are entitled “Managing the Expanding Risks of ‘Whistleblower’ Claims” and “Far-Reaching Employment Regulations Impact Banks.”
Rita is also admitted to the bar in Massachusetts, where he began his practice in the early 1990s following a federal court clerkship in Boston.
Rita earned his J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School in 1992, and his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989.
Prior to joining Fox, Rita was managing partner of the Denver office of a national labor and employment law firm.
