Joshua Van Kampen

If you are litigating an employment matter in a conservative state, you need the best possible advocate in your corner. From 2017-2025 SuperLawyers rated Josh in its “Top 100” attorney list for all of North Carolina and in its "Top 25" attorney list for Charlotte from 2018-2023 and again in 2025. These are not lists ranking the top employment lawyers. Josh has been ranked among the top attorneys in any practice area eight years running. At 53, Josh is among the youngest attorneys in North Carolina to receive these recognitions, and among an elite group to receive these prestigious recognitions nine years running. 

The road to SuperLawyers' top lists for North Carolina started in Chicago, Illinois in 1998, where Josh trained as an associate at two nationally recognized employment law defense firms in Chicago: Seyfarth Shaw and Franczek Sullivan. During his six years as a defense attorney, Josh defended Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller businesses in age, race, sex, disability, sexual harassment, traditional labor, and wage and hour litigation. Josh's defense experience also included counseling employers on litigation avoidance and sexual harassment training.

In 2004, Josh relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, and transitioned his practice from defending employers to exclusively representing victims of discrimination, sexual harassment, unequal pay, wrongful discharge, retaliation, and wage and hour violations. A significant portion of his practice also includes negotiations and litigation involving executive employment agreements, severance agreements and stock/long term incentive disputes.

Prior to forming Van Kampen Law PC in July 2011, Josh was a partner at two of the premier, plaintiff-side employment law firms in North Carolina: Fosbinder & Van Kampen, PLLC and Patterson Harkavy, LLP.

Van Kampen Law's primary clients are professional and executive-level victims of employment discrimination and sexual harassment. Josh leverages his training as a management-side employment attorney to anticipate and counteract strategies and tactics utilized by employers. Being a member of the defense bar has also been useful to Josh in helping clients to properly value their cases, and to assess when to push and when to concede during settlement negotiations.

The firm also strategically takes on fewer cases so that it can devote sufficient resources to match up favorably against the large defense firms employers invariably hire. By concentrating his practice exclusively on employment law in North Carolina for the last fiftteen years, Josh has also established close working relationships with many of the area’s employment law defense attorneys and in-house counsels, which can sometimes facilitate early settlement. To that end, many of the cases referred to Josh are from defense attorneys against whom he has litigated. Josh was even retained by a large law firm in Charlotte, which he litigated against many times, to join its defense team when it was sued for discrimination. 

Ultimately, Van Kampen Law strives to be regarded as the most aggressive employment litigation firm in the state and a firm to be feared at trial. That said, the firm also works effectively and in good faith with area employers to settle matters amicably and confidentially where possible. While litigation is ultimately often necessary, Van Kampen Law's initial approach with employers emphasizes diplomacy, open-mindedness and mutual interests. 

Josh has assumed several leadership roles within the plaintiff-side employment law bar in North Carolina. He is currently vice-chairman of the Mecklenburg County Bar Association's Labor and Employment section and has previously served as chairman and ethics chair of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice's Employment Law Section.  Josh has served on the North Carolina Bar Association's Employment Law Executive Committee for several years.  He is also member of the National Employment Lawyers Association and Southern Trial Lawyers Association. 

Josh is a frequent lecturer on employment law issues and negotiation strategy. 

Josh received his B.A. from Purdue University in 1993 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1998, where he graduated with magna cum laude honors.