mwela monthly · november/december 2013 mwela monthly letter from the editor dear ... a resume that...

November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY

Letter from the Editor

Dear Colleagues:

As the year draws to a close, it’s a natural

time to reflect on the previous twelve months,

and a brief review of the listserv and the

MWELA Newsletter reveals that MWELA

members have a lot to be proud of this

year. Whether it’s winning multimillion dol-

lar judgments or overcoming summary judg-

ment under ever more challenging standards,

MWELA members have once again made a

lasting impact in civil rights law.

December also provides us with an oppor-

tunity to look forward to the year ahead, and

to chart our way towards where we hope to

go next. In particular, as our MWELA presi-

dent, Jonathan Puth, wrote in our last issue,

we have an uphill battle ahead of us advocat-

ing against the dangerous proposed changes

to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

As always, we encourage you to get involved,

either by writing a comment on the proposed

changes at: http://www.uscourts.gov/

RulesAndPolicies/rules/proposed-

amendments.aspx, or contacting MWELA for

MWELA

MONTHLY

Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (MWELA)

Affiliated with the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA)

Website: mwela.org

Nov./Dec. 2013

Vol. 23, Issue 6

Conferences and Seminars…………...………… Pg. 2,7

Announcements and News…………...……… Pg. 9

Verdicts, Orders & Settlements……………...… Pg. 3

more opportunities for involvement (or

both!).

The MWELA Newsletter team wishes you

all enjoyable holidays and a happy new

year, filled with more exciting verdicts,

courageous plaintiffs, and positively devel-

oping law.

Sincerely,

Alexis N. Tsotakos, Esq.

Editor, MWELA Newsletter

MWELA President Jonathan Puth giving a speech

during the Annual MWELA Dinner. Photo by

Richard Renner.

http://www.uscourts.gov/RulesAndPolicies/rules/proposed-amendments.aspx



November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 2

MWELA Events

The MWELA Annual Dinner brought to-

gether our members for a night of merriment

and good cheer on November 2, 2013.

Upcoming MWELA Events MWELA 2014 Annual Conference

April 4, 2014 (All Day), Omni Shoreham

Hotel (2500 Calvert Street NW)

Super Early bird Rater ($210 for members)

available through Dec. 31, 2013

For future events, see also:

http://www.mwela.org/UpcomingEvents

In Memoriam - Nelson

Rolihlahla Mandela

Nelson Mandela

July 18, 1918 – December 05, 2013

Anti-apartheid revolutionary, philanthropist

and politician, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,

passed away on December 5, 2013, leaving

behind a legacy of inspiration for equality, hu-

manity, and freedom.

By Asya Strickland

Employers use Facebook

during Hiring Process to

Discriminate

A new study shows that employers may use

Facebook as part of their hiring process to

discriminate against certain group. The

study, conducted by Carnegie Mellon Uni-

versity, showed that between 10% and one-

third of U.S. firms use social networking

sites like Facebook to look up potential job

candidates early in the hiring process.

This experiment, conducted between Febru-

ary and July of this year, sent out over 4,000

fabricated dummy resumes to private firms

across the country. According to the results

of the study, when an applicant’s public pro-

file indicated that they were Muslim, they

were less likely to be hired than Christian

applicants. In addition, Muslim applicants

got call-backs only 2% of the time, compared

to 17% for Christians. This advantage of

Christians over Muslims was most pro-

nounced in the 10 states that were most con-

servative, based on 2012 election data.

Interestingly, the same experiment found that

disclosure of sexual orientation on the dum-

my candidate’s online profiles did not have a

detectable impact on the employer’s interest.

Many people are unaware of how disclosure

of personal information online can affect

them in the workforce. Alessandro Acquisti,

an IT and public policy professor at Carnegie

Mellon, said that many people reveal infor-

mation about themselves online, sometimes

in ways they wouldn’t even realize.

Acquisti asserts that even people who are

careful not to post embarrassing photos or

sensitive topics can still give away clues

about themselves to potential employers. For

example, religious quotes indicate religious

beliefs, and mentioning a baby registry or

shower suggests that a woman is pregnant.

MWELA members enjoying the Annual Dinner.

Photo by Richard Renner.


Discrimination is an unfortunate and some-

times even unintentional part of the hiring

process. What an employer picks up about

an applicant could influence their feelings

about that applicant, even unconsciously

said Christina Fong, a senior research scien-

tist who worked on the experiment. She

explained that even before the era of social

networking and sharing personal infor-

mation online, studies showed that employ-

ers would discriminate based on a name on

a resume that sounded African-American,

for example.

According to a survey of nearly 1,000 hu-

man resources workers conducted by Em-

ployeeScreenIQ, over one-third of U.S. em-

ployers say they review social media sites

during the hiring process some of the time,

with 7% saying they always look at those

sites.

Most employers claim to use social media

networks to find evidence of unprofessional

behavior, such as drug use. This type of

post-hiring screening may seem understand-

able, or even harmless. However, the new

research suggests that some such profiling

can lead to more fundamental discrimina-

tion. Employers avoid questions about a

person’s religious beliefs or sexual orienta-

tion in interviews, but social sites make it

easy for employers to find this information

out on their own.

Employment experts say that businesses

should be more careful about allowing peo-

ple who make hiring decisions to look up

candidates online. James McDonald, a part-

ner at Fisher & Phillips LLP who specializ-

es in employment law, said that he advises

employers that “it’s not a good idea to use

social media as a screening tool. You need

to control the information you receive so

you’re only getting information that is legal

for you to take into account.”

Submitted by Hannah Fields

University of Maryland School of Law, 2L

Valentino-Devries, Jennifer. www.wsj.com.

Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://

online.wsj.com/news/articles

Verdicts, Orders

& Settlements

Summary Judgment Denial

Decision Sets Forth Excellent

Language for what Constitutes

a Supervisor, Post Vance

I am pleased to announce that our firm re-

cently overcame summary judgment in Ash-

raf-Hassan v. Embassy of France in the U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia.

The case is before Judge Boasberg. Judge

Boasberg’s decision represents a great anal-

ysis of the “severe or pervasive” require-

ment in hostile work environment cases and

a great analysis of what constitutes a

“supervisor” after the Supreme Court’s deci-

sion in Vance. The attorneys on the case

were Ari Wilkenfeld, Rosalind Herendeen

and Zachary Wright.

In short (and as summed up by Judge

Boasberg), our client alleged a hostile work

environment based on her national origin,

race, religion, and pregnancy when she was:

(1) repeatedly called a terrorist and other

ethnic slurs; (2) she and her children were

referred to as dogs; (3) she was admonished

not to “wear any headscarves or wear any

religious signs,” despite never having done

so at work; (4) she was told that she should

not have a child and lectured on the use of

birth control; (5) she was temporarily fired

for being pregnant; (6) she was terminated

and was replaced by a French man; and (6)

during her last weeks of employment, she

was relegated to the intern room, forced to

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stand in the hallway for long stretches of

time waiting for her supervisor to give her

access to that room, and had her phone and

email access taken away.

All of the above actions were allegedly tak-

en by her supervisors at the French Embas-

sy. During discovery, Defendant did not

produce a single witness who could testify

that these actions did not happen.

Judge Boasberg found that even though

“plaintiffs must meet a high bar to prove a

hostile-work-environment claim, the evi-

dence presented by Ashraf-Hassan is ex-

treme enough to overcome summary judg-

ment and merit a trial. Furthermore, because

the harassment and her termination were

carried out by her supervisors, who pre-

sumptively act on the Embassy’s behalf, De-

fendant cannot avoid liability at this stage of

litigation.”

The Judge’s decision recounts the hostile

work environment standard in the D.C. Cir-

cuit and explicitly finds that some of our

client’s allegations, standing on their own,

were severe and offensive enough to allow

her claims to proceed to a jury. These alle-

gations included the use of racial epithets by

her supervisors, the fact that her supervisor

called her a “dog,” and her supervisor lec-

turing her on the use of condoms, birth con-

trol and telling her that she should not have

had a baby.

In addition, the Judge examined whether or

not one of our client’s supervisors was real-

ly a “supervisor” in the aftermath of the Su-

preme Court’s Vance v. Ball State Universi-

ty decision. The Judge focused on her su-

pervisor’s ability to make a decision

“causing a significant change in benefits” in

deciding that he was indeed a supervisor for

the purposes of any affirmative defense

raised by the Defendant. In our client’s

case, the Judge found her supervisor exer-

cised “supervisory powers” over her when

he moved her to an intern room and had her

phone and computer taken away, essentially

demoting her.

Given the Defendant is an Embassy, we

were able to proceed with the case under the

“commercial activity” exception to the For-

eign Sovereign Immunities Act, which abro-

gates a Foreign country’s immunity under

Title VII to the extent that they engage in

commercial activity while in the U.S.

For more information and access to the de-

cision, please visit:

http://www.ggilbertlaw.com/index.php/

information-resources/news-events

Submitted by Zachary Wright

$500,000 Settlement After a

Decade Long Litigation

Gene Lane first came to see me in early

2003. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer

and a former Peace Corps Human Re-

sources Specialist with an entirely success-

ful employment history with the Agency.

Gene left the Peace Corps and moved to an-

other agency, where he continued to work

until his retirement a couple of years back,

but missed the Peace Corps in large part be-

cause of his affinity for its mission. Gene

applied for positions several times, but his

applications were being ignored by the new

leadership of HR, who were not familiar

with his prior work.

Gene wrote a letter to the then-Director,

stating that he observed that the human re-

sources leadership was composed almost

entirely of females, and that he thought he

was being discriminated against as a w

hite male. The letter was soon shared with

the HR Director and the EEO Director.


Gene was subsequently interviewed for a

couple of openings (of which they were

many), but could tell something was wrong

in the interviews and was never selected.

He retained my firm and we filed a formal

federal sector EEO complaint.

Gene’s complaint reached Rachel Perry, an

African-American EEO officer, who was

already being mistreated, and had been

forced to initiate her own EEO complaint

against the EEO office. The responsible

management official- the EEO Director

Shirley Everest - responded by telling Ra-

chel that because of her complaint, she

would not be promoted as previously prom-

ised. Soon thereafter, Everest told Rachel’s

EEO counselor that she wanted Rachel

fired. Rachel pressed on with her opposition

by immediately alerting top Peace Corps

management of what had happened. Everest

then turned the tables on Rachel by under-

taking retaliatory discipline against her in

the form of a proposed suspension.

Rachel hired this law firm to respond to the

proposed discipline and filed her formal

EEO complaint. Therein, she included the

information that the HR Deputy Director,

Catherine Pearson, had said that Gene Lane

would never be hired because he had filed

an EEO complaint. She further contended

that this animus was motivating a continuing

policy of denying Lane employment despite

his outstanding qualifications, and that Ra-

chel had been apprised of an edict by Peace

Corps management that Gene would not be

hired because of his prior EEO complaints.

We responded to the proposed suspension

against Rachel, but the very next day after

receiving our written reply, management

withdrew it and replaced it with a proposed

removal. That Proposal reiterated the prior

charge, and added to it a contention that Ra-

chel had engaged in terminable misconduct

by hiring this law firm. Management pur-

ported to assume that Rachel had breached an

unspecified duty of confidentiality by hiring

the same law firm as another EEO complain-

ant (Gene). I have always viewed that charge

as, in essence, a contention that Rachel

should have covered up the retaliation against

the applicant, rather than give the appearance

of informing him of the facts.

We prepared a second reply, opposing the

retaliatory firing Proposal, but Rachel was

due to be fired anyway for reasons that were

not even part of the Proposal and to which

she had not been given an opportunity to re-

ply.

Rachel was placed on indefinite leave without

pay, a status that lasted until she submitted

her resignation rather than be forced to liti-

gate her retaliatory termination claims at the

Foreign Service Grievance Board. However,

Rachel’s attempt to mitigate her damages in

this way initially backfired, as the Peace

Corps would not allow her to simply resign,

but instead spitefully annotated her SF-50 to

note that she resigned in lieu of termination

after having “breached her duty of confidenti-

ality” and the Agency’s standards of ethical

conduct.

We filed our civil action for both Rachel and

Gene together. During discovery, the Peace

Corps Deputy Director, Jody Olsen, was in

my opinion to be revealed as blatantly retali-

ating against Rachel. After her deposition, it

seems that the Peace Corps was not particu-

larly interested in further litigating out the

Deputy Director’s conduct or whether it was

terminable misconduct for an EEO Officer to

hire a lawyer who was also representing an-

other complainant. The Peace Corps came to

the table after Olsen’s deposition, before Ra-

chel was even deposed, on the occasion of a

settlement conference in United States Dis-

trict Court for the District of Columbia. Be-

fore the negotiations began that day, howev-

er, the Assistant United States Attorney ad-


vised me to send Gene home: the Peace

Corps would negotiate only with Rachel and

would not be offering Gene anything.

At that 2008 settlement conference, we set-

tled Rachel’s case, Perry v. Tschetter (United

States Peace Corps), for $404,000.00. That

left Gene’s case still pending.

In 2009, the Peace Corps suddenly discov-

ered thousands of pages of new documents

and I re-deposed their key decision makers

before moving for a default judgment at the

dispositive motions deadline. The Defendant

then filed a summary judgment motion. It

was February 2010.

Our summary judgment opposition for Mr.

Lane alleged non-selection to 8 positions.

During the wait of more than three years for

a ruling, during which time I filed a Notice of

Supplemental Authority in part in hopes of

getting the Court’s attention, the case was

transferred from Judge Emmet Sullivan, to

Judge James Gwin, of the Northern District

of Ohio.

In July 2013, Judge Gwin finally ruled on the

Motions. See Lane v. Vasquez, Case No.

1:05-cv-01414; 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

97512; 119 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 267

(D.D.C. July 12, 2013). To sum up his rul-

ings, he paid little heed to our Motion for De-

fault Judgment. He granted the Defendant’s

Motion for Summary Judgment as to the ma-

jority of the non-selections of Mr. Lane. The

only exceptions were the two non-selections

that occurred closest in time to Pearson’s

statements that Lane would never be hired.

As we wrote in a Motion for Reconsidera-

tion, the Court mistakenly determined that

Gene’s evidence of retaliatory animus suf-

fered from the fatal flaw of insufficient proof

that Deputy HR Director Pearson knew about

Gene’s 2002 letter to Peace Corps Director

Gaddi Vasquez, even though the record was

replete with evidence that she timely knew

about it notwithstanding her untruthful

denial.

We further argued on Gene’s behalf, that

as to both the discrimination and retalia-

tion claims, the Court denied Gene the

benefit of dozens inferences of discrimina-

tory and retaliatory motive and of the cu-

mulative impact of all those events. Those

included Defendant’s use of sham inter-

views and falsified selection documents,

failure to rank him as “qualified” even

when that was mandatory, and failing to

fill a position to avoid having to select

Gene, despite otherwise-expressed desper-

ation to fill the position.

The Court also implicitly gave the De-

fendant, instead of Gene, the benefit of

numerous inferences, such as the inference

that one agency witness was more believa-

ble as to Lane’s qualifications or interview

performances than another. The Court did

not account at all for the significance of

HR Director Pearson’s alliance with EEO

Director Everest in discriminating and re-

taliating against Lane, nor of Everest’s

express policy of suppressing EEO com-

plaints – she had literally said that “there

would be no EEO complaints!” Regarding

discrimination, the Court misapprehended

the law, in dismissing the claims after con-

cluding that Gene failed to show substan-

tial superiority as to qualifications, by

treating objectively significant superiority

as a threshold requirement rather than just

an issue for the jury in this case where ad-

ditional evidence of pretext was presented

– though that is forbidden in the D.C. Cir-

cuit.

Nor did the Court account for Pearson’s

personal confiscation of EEO-related doc-

uments prior to their disappearance, in

failing to consider the Defendant’s spolia-

tion in granting summary judgment even

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as to the claims directly impacted by the

missing documents.

With the ruling having all these problems,

we filed an extensive motion for reconsider-

ation. While that motion was pending and

trial was looming, the parties met for anoth-

er settlement conference in the U.S. District

Court with Magistrate Judge Robinson.

With the reconsideration motion in play and

trial of the not-dismissed retaliatory non-

selections around the corner, the Defendant

finally came around. The Lane case was

settled for $500,000.00, ending this decade-

long saga.

Submitted by Leizer Z. Goldsmith

$814,305 Jury Verdict Award-

ed for Violation of DCFMLA

Please join us in congratulating John F.

Karl, Jr. and Kristen Grim Hughes on their

impressive jury verdict against The Interna-

tional Brotherhood of Teamsters. Plaintiff

Timothy Lewis, a union organizer for the

Teamsters, was awarded $814,305 for the

Teamster’s violation of the District of Co-

lumbia Family and Medical Leave Act

(DCFMLA). Mr. Lewis was terminated by

the Teamsters when he requested additional

intermittent leave to receive treatment for

chronic back problems.

The case is Timothy Lewis v. The Interna-

tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, No.

2011CA002773B. The decision was fea-

tured in the D.C. Metro section of Ver-

dictSearch in September 2013.

Conferences & Seminars

D.C. Bar Programs

“Mandatory Course on the D.C. Rules of

Professional Conduct and D.C. Prac-

tice,” January 11, 2014 from 9:00 a.m. –

3:30 p.m. Cost is $219.

“Basic Training & Beyond: Day One –

How to Grow a Law Firm,” January 15,

2014 from 9:15 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. There is

no cost.

“Lunch & Learn: Grow Your Practice

with LinkedIn,” January 17, 2014 from

12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. There is no cost.

“Basic Training & Beyond: Day Two –

How to Grow a Law Firm,” January 22,

2014 from 9:15 a.m. -4:30 p.m. There is no

cost.

“Lunch and Learn: Social Media Ethics

4 Lawyers,” January 23, 2014 from 12:00

p.m. – 2p.m. There is no cost.

Case summaries are

on winter break. They

will return next issue!


“Lunch and Learn: What Solo and

Small Firm Practitioners Need to Know

About Malpractice Insurance,” February

6, 2014 from 12:00 p.m. -2:00 p.m. There

is no cost.

“NEW DATE: Best Practices To Make

Your Next Mediation A Client Relations

Success,” February 20, 2014 from 12:00

p.m. -1:30 p.m. for law students $0.00, for

litigation section $25, for non-section

members $35.

“NEW DATE: The Best Person To Sell

Your Services Is You,” February 25,

2014 from 12:30 p.m.- 2:00 p.m. for law

students $0.00, for law practice manage-

ment section is $25, for non-section mem-

bers $30.

“Basic Training & Beyond: Day Two –

How to Grow a Law Firm,” February 26,

2014 from 9:15 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. There is

no cost.

D.C. Bar programs are generally held at

the D.C. Bar, 1101 K Street, N.W., First

Floor, Washington, D.C., unless otherwise

stated. For more information and to regis-

ter for these programs, please visit: http://

www.dcbar.org/for_sectionmembers/

events/index.cfm.

NELA Events

“Forced Arbitration in The Workplace:

A Symposium,” February 27 2014 at the

University of California, Berkeley School

of Law.

“Trial Boot Camp,” March 14-15, 2014 at

Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza, Chicago,

IL. NELA's Trial Boot Camp is an intensive

two-day skills-based program specifically

designed for plaintiffs' employment lawyers

at all levels of trial experience.

For more information and to register for

the NELA events, please visit:

http://exchange.nela.org/Events/

EventDescription/?

CalendarEventKey=7c5790f3-31db-4398-

9cbc-8454e91b0ebf

FELTG Programs

“Absence & Medical Issues Week,” Janu-

ary 13 to January 17, 2014, this workshop

is focused on the most complex areas of

federal sector employment law: absences

from workplace. Cost is $1950 for full

week, $1570 for four days, $1220 for three

days, $850 for two days, and $470 for one

day.

“Advanced Legal Writing Week,” Febru-

ary 3-7, 2014, workshop program focuses

on writing complex documents in federal

sector employment law cases. Enrollment is

limited and weeklong only. Cost is $1,950

FELTG Programs are generally held at

the International Student House (ISH), El-

la Burling Hall, 1825 R Street NW, Wash-

ington, DC, unless otherwise stated. For

more information and to register for these

programs, please visit: http://

www.feltg.com/Seminars.html.

http://exchange.nela.org/Events/EventDescription/?CalendarEventKey=7c5790f3-31db-4398-9cbc-8454e91b0ebf





DC Women’s Bar Association Events

“How to Drill Down for Success in Feder-al Government Employment Applications and Interviews,” January 8, 2014 from 6:00 pm. – 8:00 p.m. Cost is $20 for WBA members, $30 for non-members, and $20 for students.

“WBA Business Hour: Customized Com-munication Across Generations,” January 30, 2014 from 12:00 p.m. -1:00 p.m. This event is hosted via teleconference.

“Fourth Annual Mentoring Supper,” February 26, 2014 from 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. Cost is $20 for WBA &FCBA members, $30 non-members, $20 students.

For more information and to register for the WBAF events, please visit: http://www.wbadc.org/calendar_list.asp

Announcements & News

The San Francisco EEOC Of-fice has Relocated

EEOC’s San Francisco Office has moved to The Phillip Burton Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, 5 West, P.O. Box 36025, San Francisco, CA 94102.

McDonald & Karl Have Relocated

McDonald & Karl have relocated their of-fice to 1150 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Ninth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20036

President’s Club Members (as of December 11, 2013)

Sustaining Members and President’s Club Members are Regular Members whose gen-erous support of the Association is recog-nized in MWELA publications, and in-cludes MELA membership for those meet-ing MELA eligibility requirements. Anoth-er benefit includes being listed on the web-site’s “Find a Lawyer” search tool. Please contact us at (703) 778-4648 or via email at [email protected] for more information on how to become a Sustaining or President’s Club Member. The following is a list of President’s Club Members: Leslie R Alderman Alderman, Devorsetz & Hora, PLLC

Elliott M Andalman Andalman & Flynn, PC

John A Ates Ates Law Firm, P.C.

Alan L Banov Alan Banov and Associates

Josh R. Bowers Law Office of Joshua F. Bowers, PC

Stephen B Bruce Stephen R. Bruce Law Offices

Adam Carter The Employment Law Group, P.C.

David Cashdan Cashdan & Kane

Linda W Correia Webster, Fredrickson, Correia, & Puth, PLLC


Bruce L Fredrickson Webster, Fredrickson, Correia, & Puth, PLLC

Jonathan T Gould Law Office of Jonathan L. Gould

Neil Henrichsen Henrichsen Siegel, PLLC

John B Karl, Jr. McDonald & Karl

Phillip Kete, Attorney at Law

Stephen Lebau Lebau & Neuworth, LLC

Alan Lescht Alan Lescht & Associates, PC

Richard Neuworth R. Scott Oswald The Employment Law Group P.C.

Patricia Payne Payne & Associates

Jonathan Puth Webster, Fredrickson, Correia & Puth, PLLC

Donna Rucker Rucker and Associates, PC

David Scher The Employment Law Group, P.C.

Richard Seymour Law Office of Richard T. Seymour, P.L.L.C.

Nicholas Woodfield The Employment Law Group, PC

Philip Zipin, Zipin Law Firm, LLC

Sustaining Members (as of December 11, 2013)

Kristin Alden Alden Law Group, PLLC

Lisa Banks Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP

John L Berry Berry & Berry PLLC

Marni Byrum McQuade Byrum P.L.L.C.

Isabel Casteleiro Clark Law Group, PLLC

Denise Clark Clark Law Group, PLLC

Boniface Cobbina Law Offices of Boniface K. Cobbina, P.C.

Charles Day The Day Law Practice LLC

Daniel DiJames National Education Association Staff Or-ganization

Catharine Edwards Edwards and Eubanks, LLC Michael Eisenberg Law Office of Michael D.J. Eisenberg, Attorney and Counselor at Law

Correction

MWELA Monthly, September/October 2013, Page 1, in the photo-graph taken at the EJC Labor Day Breakfast, we incorrectly identified NELA’s Advocacy Director Julie Strandlie as Ms. Virginia Diamond.


Matthew Famiglietti Law Office of Matthew T. Famiglietti PLLC

Morris Fischer The Law Office of Morris E. Fischer, LLC

Gerald Gilliard The Law Office of Gerald L. Gilliard, Esq., LLC

Vic Glasberg Victor M. Glasberg & Associates

Lisa Goldblatt The Goldblatt Law Firm

Leizer D. Goldsmith The Goldsmith Law Firm, LLC

Jerry Goldstein Bulman, Dunie, Burke & Feld

Betty Grdina Mooney, Green, Saindon, Murphy & Welch

Cathy F Harris Kator, Parks & Weiser PLLC

Ryan Hintzen The Hintzen Law Firm, PLLC

Michael C. Hoare Michael J. Hoare, PC

Sundeep Hora Alderman, Devorsetz & Hora PLLC

Susan Huhta Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

Peter Jeffrey The Jeffrey Law Group, PLLC

Alan Kabat Bernabei & Wachtel, PLLC

Steven Kahn Kahn & Scharman, LLC

Joseph F. Kaplan Passman & Kaplan, P.C.

Michael Kator Kator, Parks & Weiser PLLC

Debra Katz Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP

Christopher Keeven Shaw, Bransford & Roth, PC

H. David Kelly, Jr. Beins, Axelrod, P.C.

Jennifer Klar Relman & Dane, PLLC

James Klimaski Klimaski & Associates, PC

Daniel Kohrman AARP Foundation Litigation

David A Marshall Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP

Courtney Mickman Tully Rinckey, PLLC

Elizabeth Newman The Jeffrey Law Group, PLLC

Jessica Parks Kator, Parks & Weiser PLLC

Edward Passman Passman & Kaplan, P.C.

William Phelan The Gowen Group Law Office, PLLC

James Rubin Rubin Employment Law Firm, PC

J.Thomas Spiggle Spiggle Law Firm

Larry Stein Law Offices of Larry J. Stein

Jeremy Wright, Kator, Parks & Weiser PLLC


MWELA MAIL MWELA List Serve Instructions

Updated September 2011

MWELA members have access to the list serve. Upon joining, the email noted on your membership application, your “subscription address,” will be activated for list serve use.

Please refer to the MWELA List Serve Pro-tocol for information on acceptable postings to the MWELA List Serves. MWELA has two list serves: on-topic and off-topic. See below for more information.

On-Topic List Serve ([email protected]) (Please note the underscores nela_aff_MWELA)

Questions about plaintiff’s employment law (i.e., representation of employees in dis-putes with employers); Questions about law practice management;

Any other issues directly affecting plain-tiff’s employment law, NELA and MWELA-related announcements & invitations di-rectly related to plaintiff’s employment law.

If you wish to stop receiving list serve mes-sages, even temporarily, send an email with the subject line “Suspend” from your sub-scription address to [email protected]. To reactivate, send your request to the same email with the subject line “Reactivate.”

Your initial access level to the list serve will be receiving each message sent to the list

serve (as opposed to a daily summary digest of messages sent). Send an email from your subscription address with the subject line “Digest” to [email protected] if you wish to subscribe for the digest format only.

If you ever wish to completely unsubscribe from the list serve, send an email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” from your sub-scription address to: [email protected].

To send a message to the MWELA members on the list serve, address it to:

[email protected]. (Please note the underscores nela_aff_MWELA).


Request for Brief Bank Submissions

Please submit briefs, jury instructions, papers, verdict forms, settlement agreements, plead-ings, discovery requests, protective orders, motions, oppositions, etc. to the MWELA on-line

brief bank. Here is the URL. Just follow the on-screen format.

Go to: http://www.mwela.org/SubmitABrief.php.

If you will take just half an hour every six or twelve months, you can help us build an amazing library. It is easy to submit briefs.

Here's how:

(1) Convert your brief to PDF;

(2) Go to www.mwela.org, sign in, and click on Submit A Brief.

(3) Fill out the form and upload.

From there your submission will be reviewed by a moderator. If all is in order, the moderator will post to the web site.

If you click on “Brief Bank” or “Members Only Search” you will be able to find the brief by

name or by searching key words. A “Members Only Search” will also retrieve key words from all e-mails posted to mwela-mail.

To view the brief bank, go to www.mwela.org. Please send any feedback about the brief bank to Tom Gagliardo at [email protected].


About MWELA Monthly Newsletter Editor: Alexis N. Tsotakos, Esq.

Newsletter Alexis N. Tsotakos, Esq., Amelia Diaz, Asya Strickland Committee: & Stefan G. Ducich

Officers: Jonathan Puth, President; John Ates, President-Elect; Donna Rucker, Vice-President; Alan Kabat, Treasurer; Jennifer Klar, Secretary.

Board Members: Les Alderman, Lisa Banks, Alan Banov, Robert L. Bell, Joel P. Bennett, Joshua F. Bowers, Subhashini Bollini, Carla Brown, Gary T. Brown, Da-vid R. Cashdan, Stephen Chertkof, Dennis Chong, Denise Clark, Boni-face Cobbina, Linda Correia, Mackenzie Coy, Gwen D'Souza, A.J. Dhali, Elaine Fitch, Bruce A. Fredrickson, Stephen Fung, Thomas J. Gagliardo, Joe Gebhardt, Gary M. Gilbert, Leizer Z. Goldsmith, Jonathan Gould, Cathy A. Harris, Michael G. Kane, Joseph Kaplan, John F. Karl, Jr., Dan-iel A. Katz, Hnin Khaing, Paul Kiyonaga, James Klimaski, Tammany Kramer, Kenneth Lemberg, Omar Melehy, Mary K. O'Melveny, Jeremy Monteiro, Edgar Ndjatou, R. Scott Oswald, Valencia Rainey, Richard Renner, David E. Schreiber, Richard T. Seymour, Alane Tempchin, Ted J. Williams, Woodley Osborne (Emeritus)

MWELA BOARD MEETINGS ARE USUALLY THE SECOND THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

How to Submit News and Ideas to the Newsletter

Submit any news that is of interest to MWELA members, including cases, firm news, verdicts, settlements, appearances, media notices, events, seminars, and practice tips to:

Alexis N. Tsotakos, Esq. Associate Attorney

The Law Offices of Gary M. Gilbert & Associates, P.C. 1100 Wayne Avenue Suite 900

Silver Spring, MD 20910 Tel: 301.608.0880 ext. 253 Fax: 301.608.0881

E-mail: [email protected]

To assist the editor in publicizing member decisions, judgments, discovery dispute rulings, jury verdicts, summary judgment rulings, or other matters of interest, please provide me a detailed summary. E-mail attachments should be submitted in Word format.

Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (MWELA) 400 North Washington Street, Suite 300

Alexandria, VA 22314 P: 703-778-4648

E-mail: [email protected] www.mwela.org

For questions about MWELA, contact Carol Montoya at: 703-778-4648, fax: 703-683-5480, or email: [email protected].

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