ATTORNEY JULIO SHARP-WASSERMAN

Julio joined Bantle & Levy as an associate in 2024. Julio represents employees in cases involving discrimination, wage theft, and other employment law violations. In addition, Julio assists employees and others facing Strategic Lawsuits Against Participation (“SLAPPs”), through anti-SLAPP negotiation and litigation defense.

Before enrolling in law school, Julio worked as a resident advisor in an assisted living facility for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and as a performing singer-songwriter.

During law school, Julio advocated for workers in individual wage and discrimination cases at Bantle & Levy and the Legal Aid Society’s Employment Law Unit. He also worked as a Policy Analyst at the Public Participation Project, where he published anti-SLAPP scholarship, helped draft anti-SLAPP legislation, and authored an amicus brief in WPB Residents for Integrity in Gov’t, Inc. v. Materio discussing the application of Florida’s anti-SLAPP statute to political speech.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 2019, Julio worked as a fellow in the New York Legal Assistance Group’s Special Litigation Unit, where he litigated class actions on behalf of people with disabilities, including JSM v. New York City Department of Education, challenging chronic due process hearing delays in New York City’s special education system. From 2020-2021, Julio served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Lawrence E. Kahn in the Northern District of New York. And from 2021-2024, Julio worked as an associate at Outten & Golden, where he litigated employment cases in New York and California, including class actions challenging wage theft, improper criminal history screening, and unlawful restrictions on employee speech, as well as individual discrimination and wage cases.

Julio is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the New York County Lawyers Association, the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Disability Rights Bar Association, and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Bar Association.

Julio maintains a blog discussing trends in New York anti-SLAPP law.  He has also published the following articles:

• As HSTPA Enhances Anti-Retaliation Protections for Tenants, Don’t Forget About New York’s Anti-SLAPP Law, New York State Bar Association – New York Real Property Law Journal (Nov. 2020)

• New York’s Anti-SLAPP Law is only a Slap on the Wrist. Will New Legislation Make it Sting?, New York Bar Association Journal (Dec. 2019)

• A Federal Anti-SLAPP Law Would Make Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act More Effective, First Amendment Law Review (Mar. 2019)

• Note: Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act and the Common Law of Defamation: A Convergence Thesis, Columbia Science and Technology Law Review (Jan. 2019)

• Julio Sharp-Wasserman and David Krauss, The Second Circuit Should Emulate Discrimination Law in Assessing Simultaneous FLSA and NYLL Misclassification Claims, New York State Bar Association – Labor and Employment Law Journal (Nov. 2018)

Outside of work, Julio enjoys playing the guitar and violin and songwriting.