Member

Representative Matters

• One of our clients was sued in a recent federal court case by a class of former employees claiming they had been denied severance benefits. The employees had been represented by the Communication Workers of America, which was also sued. On behalf of the employer, we moved to dismiss the case, showing that the company's severance practices did not violate the collective bargaining agreement and that such a violation was a required element of the plaintiffs' claims. In response, the plaintiffs dropped the entire case, with prejudice.
• We recently assisted a large cable operator in the processing of several decertification petitions immediately prior to the sale of the company. The union had claimed in nearly every decertification that the company had induced and/or improperly assisted the employees' drive to decertify the union. We convinced the NLRB that the charges should be dismissed and the company ultimately prevailed in the elections. During the pendency of the NLRB matters, we guided and/or conducted collective bargaining while providing advice on pending grievances.
• We twice successfully defended accusations by the United Food and Commercial Workers union against one our clients that it refused to recognize a particular union representative. The client did not recognize the union representative because he had been fired for violently confronting his supervisors over a grievance. First, we won a trial before the National Labor Relations Board over the union's accusation that our client's conduct was an unfair labor practice. Later, the Union filed a federal court lawsuit, seeking to compel an arbitration about the company's actions under the collective bargaining agreement. We then were successful persuading the Court that the Union's Motion to Compel should be denied because the dispute was subject to the primary jurisdiction of the NLRB.

Professional Activities

• Contributing Editor, The Developing Labor Law
  
• Member of American Bar Association Committee on Development of the Law Under the National Labor Relations Act
• Management Representative to National Labor Relations Board Practice and Procedure Committee, Region 27

Publications and Presentations

• Speaker, Midwinter Meeting of the American Bar Association's Committee on the Development of the Law under the National Labor Relations Act, 2007
• Speaker, Colorado Hospitality Association and the Colorado Hospital Association regarding union organizing developments in the State of Colorado, 2007
• Regular Speaker, Institute for Applied Management and Law

Education

• Juris Doctor, St. John's University School of Law, 1996
• Bachelor of Arts, University of Florida, 1991