Activities In Addition To Representing Clients

The field of labor and employment law moves quickly. Every year, the Federal courts of appeals hand down more than six hundred published decisions. The Federal trial courts hand down thousands more. Many additional decisions are handed down by the State courts.

For the best result, it is important that attorneys in this field keep up with new developments. I speak and write extensively, and this helps me stay on top of legal developments. For example:

• I have co-authored fifteen editions to date of the ongoing EQUAL EMPLOYMENT LAW UPDATE, published by the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law through the Bureau of National Affairs, Washington, D.C., from 1996 through 2007. Each edition is over 1,700 pages long, and covers all types of employment discrimination, proof of discrimination, court procedures and evidence. I have already started work on the sixteenth edition. The book can be examined here. My original co-author was a highly respected attorney for employers, Barbara Berish Brown of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky, & Walker in Washington, D.C. My current co-author is the equally highly respected attorney for employers, John F. Aslin of Perkins Coie in Seattle, Washington.
• At the cutting edge of class action research, I co-authored ELIZABETH J. CABRASER AND RICHARD T. SEYMOUR, ANALYSIS, IMPLICATIONS, AND TEXT OF THE CLASS ACTION FAIRNESS ACT 2005, SPECIAL ALERT TO CALIFORNIA CLASS ACTIONS PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, CALIFORNIA FORMS OF PLEADING AND PRACTICE (LexisNexis, 2005).
• I have helped train lawyers around the country, through extensive speaking on top-notch programs and through the papers I write for those audiences.

More information on my publications and speaking.

• I have been involved in the majority of Supreme Court cases from 1977 to 2001 involving employment discrimination. In these cases, I have helped prepare briefs for one side or the other, or briefs for civil rights organizations acting as friends of the court, or have helped prepare plaintiffs’ attorneys for their oral arguments.
• I was a member of the drafting committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights that helped write the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
• I am a Fellow, and from 1998 to 2002 was a member of the Board of Governors, of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.
• I was elected a Vice-Chair of the 22,000-member American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law on August 9, 2008. I was its elected Liaison for ABA Governance from 2006 to 2008. I was a member of the governing Council from 1998 to 2006. As an officer, I have retained a vote on the Council, and have additionally become a member of the ABA Section Officers Council.
  
  • I was a co-chair of its Equal Employment Opportunity Committee from 1991 to 1994, and co-chair of one of its subcommittees from 1979 on;
  • I was a co-chair of its Annual Meeting Subcommittee from 1994 to 1995;
  • I was a co-chair of its Continuing Legal Education Committee from 1995 to 1998.
    
• I was a member of the former American Bar Association Class Action Task Force from 2002 through 2004.
• I was the Chair of the Employment Rights Section of the American Association for Justice or AAJ (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or ATLA) from 2003 to 2004.
• I was the Chair of the AAJ Section Leaders’ Conference from 2003 to 2004.
• I was the Chair of AAJ’s Section and Litigation Group Coordinating Committee from 2005-2008, and remain a member. I was a Vice-Chair from 2004 to 2005. This Committee oversees the 18 AAJ Sections and more than 80 AAJ Litigation Groups.
• I am one of AAJ’s liaisons to the American Law Institute task force working on the Restatement of Employment Law;
• In 2005, I participated in an invitation-only meeting of the group of judges, law professors, and attorneys responsible for writing the rules for Federal courts to follow in deciding which electronic information possessed by one side of a lawsuit should be made available to the other side.
• In 2005, I was on a panel in an invitation-only meeting of the Federal Judicial Center and New York University Law School to help train Federal judges on giving jury instructions in employment discrimination cases.
• I am a member of AAJ ’s President’s Club; and
• I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
• I have frequently testified before Congress on affirmative action, testing issues, and the performance of the EEOC and the Department of Justice.
• I edited the Lawyers’ Committee newsletter, Civil Rights Act and EEO News, a free publication that went to over 6,700 plaintiffs’ attorneys, public officials, and others across the country from 1992 through 2001.
• For several years ending in 1999, I co-chaired the annual “EEO Update” conference sponsored by Georgetown University Law Center.
• I was an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center for three years, teaching a graduate-level course in employment discrimination law.

Important Information From The Association of Trial Lawyers of America