Cozen O’Connor Fellows Susan Eisenberg, Jeremy Glenn, Mike Schmidt, Joe Tilson, and Anna Wermuth have been named by Lawdragon to its 2024 list of the Top 500 Leading US Corporate Employment Lawyers. For Joe, this marks his 14th consecutive year. For Anna, her 8th consecutive year. Jeremy and Susan were both named for their 5th consecutive year. And for Mike, his 4th consecutive year.
John Hamlin (New York, NY) won the award for International Employment Lawyer of the Year– In-House 2024 at the annual IEL Employment Lawyer Awards which took place in London on November 13th. The IEL Awards recognize the most outstanding private practice and in-house employment and labor law specialists in the world in twenty-three categories.
On November 21st, The White House announced that President Joe Biden had signed an Executive Order creating a Presidential Emergency Board to help resolve an ongoing dispute between New Jersey Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. The President also announced his intention to appoint Ira Jaffe (Potomac, MD) Chair of PEB 252. Ira has served as a full-time arbitrator and mediator of labor and employment disputes since 1981 and has presided over more than 6,000 cases in a wide variety of industries in the private and public sectors and serves on over 80 permanent arbitration panels. He has served on six prior PEBs.
On November 14th in New York City, Homer LaRue (Columbia, MD), co-founder of the Ray Corollary Initiative (RCI), accepted the Judge Bernice Donald Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Legal Profession, given by the ABA LEL Section to an organization that has made a significant contribution to diversity in the legal profession, which was presented to RCI. The RCI is a detailed plan of action to increase the number of diverse persons selected as arbitrators, mediators, and other ADR professionals. The goal of the RCI is to encourage selectors to commit to the RCI Pledge of creating selection slates (i.e., the short list of neutrals to be considered for selection) that are 30% diverse.
Wendi Lazar (New York, NY) announced the launch of C•Suite Strategies, a strategic advisory firm dedicated to helping businesses and executives navigate complex challenges across borders and industries. She also advises European lawyers with clients in the US or expats working abroad. Wendi is located in New York and can be reached at [email protected].
Casey Ryan (Pittsburgh, PA) was named as the winner of the Hortense Ward Courageous Leader Award by the Center for Women in the Law at the University of Texas-Austin School of Law. Casey was recognized by the Center as a trailblazer in workplace gender parity policies and practices and for spearheading numerous state-of-the-art, best-in-class resources for recruiting, retaining, and developing legal talent. The award honors the legacy and achievements of Hortense Sparks Ward, an accomplished lawyer, suffragist and the first female chief justice of Texas’ Supreme Court.
Cynthia Sass (Tampa, FL) was honored by Bloomberg Law, presenting her with its Outstanding Contributor Award at the American Bar Association Labor and Employment Law’s Annual Conference in November 2024 for her exceptional work on the “Employment at Will: A State-by-State Survey” treatise. The treatise serves as a vital resource for thousands of employment attorneys across the country. When announced by Cynthia’s firm, they declared “[i]n a moment that perfectly embodied the phrase ‘reaching new heights in legal scholarship,’ the diminutive dynamo Cynthia N. Sass proved that great legal minds come in all sizes.”
Joe Torres (Chicago, IL) was named a 2024 Notable Latino Leader by Crain’s Chicago Business. The honorees’ professions range from law, architecture, and arts to tech and transportation. In addition to serving on the Lawyer Trust Fund of Illinois and the policy board of the American Benefits Council, Joe is chair emeritus of the Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund, which has awarded over $800,000 to Latino law students.
Gwynne Wilcox (New York, NY) was named Chair of the NLRB by President Biden on December 17th. She was confirmed on September 6, 2023 for a second Board member term ending August 27, 2028. Ms. Wilcox previously served as a Member of the NLRB from August 4, 2021 until August 27, 2023. Gwynne is the first Black woman to be Chair of the Agency and the first Black woman to serve on the Board since its inception in 1935.
Ruben Garcia (Las Vegas, NV) has been named the Ralph Denton Professor of Law at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law. “A named professorship is the highest honor a faculty member can attain and is based on a long-term record of recognized excellence,” said UNLV Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law Leah Chan Grinvald. Ruben teaches and writes on employment law and constitutional law. His scholarship has appeared in more than twenty leading law reviews and peer-reviewed publications. Professor Garcia’s latest book, Critical Wage Theory: Why Wage Justice is Race Justice, was published in July 2024 by University of California Press.
Jospeh Slater (Toledo, OH), Distinguished University Professor and Eugene N. Balk Professor of Law and Values at the University of Toledo College of Law, was named the recipient of the 2024 Arvid Anderson Public Sector Labor and Employment Attorney of the Year Award for lifetime contributions in the field of public sector labor law. This award, presented annually by the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law, recognizes an attorney whose career substantially contributed to the development and advancement of public sector labor law.
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