Keith Grossman

A partner at Hirschfeld Kraemer, Keith brings an informed strategic perspective on crisis management, client needs, business priorities and budgetary realities. His practice is focused on the full panoply of employment and labor law, including collective bargaining, employment litigation, internal investigations, training, crisis management and workplace violence prevention.  Keith’s decades-long experience in hospitality has culminated in his extensive representation of large Hotel Industry clients, most recently serving as lead spokesperson for a coordinated group of more than 40 hotels bargaining with UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Business growth is part of Keith’s legal DNA, a skill he nurtured over 17 years as Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. In that role, he confronted a full range of global legal issues, from counterterrorism, natural disasters, diseases, and human trafficking to global litigation, crisis management and response, labor relations, international and domestic investigations, workplace violence prevention, and government affairs. Keith was instrumental in developing Starwood’s global crisis management program after 9/11 and he oversaw the Company’s worldwide safety and security team.  He also helped lead a team and developed the legal strategy that enabled Starwood to obtain the first Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) license to develop and open the first U.S.-branded hotel in an embargoed Cuba. Keith was a founding member of Starwood’s Corporate Diversity Council and Human Rights Council, and he developed and chaired the Company’s Workplace Violence Prevention Team.

Keith is the former Chair of the Board of REACH Prep, a Stamford, Connecticut-based organization dedicated to facilitating top independent school opportunities, and admission to and graduation from highly competitive colleges for gifted and economically challenged Latino and Black students. He holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Tufts University, and earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law.

A family-oriented person, Keith enjoys traveling and spending quality time with his wife and two grown children. Having traveled to Cuba more than a dozen times, he remains enamored with the beauty, art, music, food, and architecture of the country as well as the incredible warmth and spirit of the Cuban people. Keith also is passionate about wine, good food, and sports (especially New York Giants football). A history buff, Keith enjoys reading non-fiction and is drawn particularly to the history of the American Civil War and has toured most of the major battlefields of that conflict.

Education

J.D., New York University School of Law, 1987

B.A., Tufts University, 1984, magna cum laude