Michael J. Gentry

Michael Gentry is a shareholder in Reinhart’s Labor and Employment Practice, representing employers in noncompete, non-solicitation and trade secret disputes and related business disputes involving data theft and insider threats. He is also a member of the firm’s Data Privacy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Groups, and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US). In that role, he counsels businesses on artificial intelligence adoption and emerging technology governance, negotiates vendor and procurement contracts for AI-enabled and emerging technology tools, and advises companies on data privacy compliance.

Michael litigates and negotiates restrictive covenant disputes for employers, including noncompete agreements and confidentiality and trade secret claims. He represents companies pursuing or defending against injunctions, temporary restraining orders and damages claims when a departing employee takes proprietary information, joins a competitor, or solicits former clients or workers. His experience spans state-specific noncompete enforceability rules, garden-leave and forfeiture-for-competition provisions, and disputes that cross into computer fraud and trade secret misappropriation claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state trade secrets statutes, matters that increasingly hinge on defensible e-discovery strategy and sound management of large, complex data sets.

Michael counsels employers and businesses on the adoption and governance of artificial intelligence, including generative AI tools, algorithmic decision-making systems and AI-based workforce management platforms. He helps clients build AI governance frameworks and implement human-oversight and transparency measures required under emerging state AI laws and evolving federal guidance. His AI counseling includes drafting AI use policies and training management on compliant AI rollout in hiring, performance review and monitoring.

Michael also helps clients build defensible data governance and e-discovery programs, applying his grounding in emerging AI technologies to advise information security (InfoSec) teams on litigation hold compliance and the recovery of evidence from insider-threat employees, often a central feature of modern employment disputes involving departing employees, data exfiltration and trade secret theft. He advises on employment counseling matters such as discipline, leave and termination decisions, tailoring handbooks and employee agreements to meet employment, privacy, cybersecurity and information-retention needs, and helps clients prevent data theft and wire fraud while complying with U.S. and international data privacy laws.