NELA

Empowering Workers' Rights Attorneys

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Richard E. Johnson

I remember Paul Tobias more for his cheerful, positive, confident attitude toward life than for anything else. Maybe a decade ago, at a Florida NELA gathering at the Radisson Hotel at Indialantic Beach, I got up early to catch the sunrise over the Atlantic. The breakfast room was perfectly positioned to catch it and had just opened. One of our speakers, Lew Maltby, who has made quite a mark in American employee rights, joined me. Paul Tobias, whom I didn’t know well enough to call Pete, had to swim a few laps in the hotel pool before he joined us. We had a memorable conversation. Two things stick out. Paul had taste enough to share my affection for an old-school no-frills Florida beach front-hotel with modest amenities but all the basics. Also, Paul wanted me to be sure to know that the founding of NELA was in Florida, in Wesley Chapel. There was some kind of an ABA event that those interested in forming an employee-rights group would be attending anyway. So they had a sort of rump session and started NELA, though I think he said they called it PELA — Plaintiffs Employee Rights Association. .

Years later, in … Read More

Charles E. Guerrier

In 1978 I was living in Ohio.  I was the Executive Director of Women’s Law Fund, a not-for-profit legal organization and grantee of the Ford Foundation established to eradicate sex discrimination in employment.  The Law Fund was handling a number of Title VII cases in the Southern District of Ohio and Title VII litigation, generally, was on the increase, especially in Cincinnati.  At that time there were not many attorneys who were familiar with the special problems presented by Title VII cases.  Pregnancy discrimination and the BFOQ exception were still live issues under Title VII.   I decided that it would be a wise use of the limited funds in the Law Fund’s budget (and beneficial to the Cincinnati bench and bar) to sponsor a day-long conference in Cincinnati dealing with sex discrimination and related federal legislation.  I arranged for practitioners and judges to speak on various topics and allowed sufficient social time during lunch for the participants to get to know one another.  One of the practitioners who attended that conference was Paul Tobias.

Near the end of the conference Paul approached me with an idea: “This was great!  You need to hold conferences like this across the country and … Read More

Black workers matter, so end forced arbitration

As employment lawyers who have devoted our careers to fighting discrimination in the workplace, we are heartened to see the world awaken to systemic and structural racism after the egregious killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. We are also keenly interested to watch corporate giants weigh in from their positions of privilege and power, as they post online messages supporting Black Lives Matter, tweet condemnation of racist police violence and donate to organizations such as the NAACP.

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My Turn: Employment Lawyers Association chapter agrees: Black lives matter

“You get treated like an animal,” Rayshard Brooks stated in a 2019 interview regarding his experiences in the criminal justice system. “Some of the system could look at us as individuals; we do have lives, you know.” Black lives matter. Mr. Brooks, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor have all recently given their lives to teach our society a truth that we still, somehow, have not learned.

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NELA And The Institute Joint Statement On The Long Road To Racial Justice In This Country

National Employment Lawyers Association And The Employee Rights Advocacy Institute For Law & Policy Joint Statement On The Long Road To Racial Justice In This Country

NELA and The Institute express our profound outrage and sadness regarding the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others in this country who have lost their lives because of the color of their skin.

We can never accept brutality and inequity. As workers’ rights advocates, we see every day the insidious ways racism and bias strip people of their human rights, rights to equal pay, equal treatment, and even the right to feel safe at work. NELA and The Institute will never accept institutionalized exclusion and oppression of Black people; the results of this injustice are born out in pay disparities, poverty and unemployment levels, and health and health care disparities that have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We share the anger and sorrow of our communities. We share the responsibility and the labor for blazing a different trail, and recognize this as a call to an even greater commitment in our work and lives.

NELA and The Institute were founded to strengthen the legal system to better … Read More

NELA Files Comments On Proposed Federal Rules Changes For National Emergencies

TO: RulesCommittee_Secretary@ao.uscourts.gov

To the Members of the Advisory Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments concerning possible rule amendments that could be helpful in future national emergencies. I write as the National Employment Lawyers Association’s liaison to the Advisory Committee. This letter contains NELA’s comments. We believe that adoption of these comments could, in general, improve cost and efficiency in discovery and certain court hearings. But, in particular, adoption of these comments would allow cases to continue forward even if the courts were closed due to a national emergency. These suggestions are meant to be neutral, i.e., their adoption should not result in giving advantages to one side.

Our procedure was to examine the existing language in certain rules and propose either new language or commentary. We begin with rules concerning discovery and continue with certain rules concerning hearings, oral arguments and bench trials.

I. Depositions and Subpoenas

Whether during an emergency or in the normal course, Rule 30 allows for depositions to be taken by telephone or video conference. Rules 28, 29 and other parts of Rule 30 should be interpreted to facilitate efficient, less costly and effective depositions by telephone or video conference.

Rule 28 sets

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NELA Opposes Nomination Of Cory Wilson To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Fifth Circuit

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Re: National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) Opposes Nomination of Cory Wilson to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Dear Chair Graham, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

On behalf of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), and its 4,000 circuit, state, and local affiliate members across the country, we write to express our strong opposition to the confirmation of Mississipi state court judge Cory Wilson to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. NELA is the largest professional membership organization in the country comprised of lawyers who represent workers in labor, employment, and civil rights disputes. Founded in 1985, NELA advances employee rights and serves lawyers who advocate for equality and justice in the American workplace. Our members represent plaintiffs in employment cases in every circuit, including the Fifth Circuit to which Judge Wilson has been nominated. Our members and the thousands of clients they represent afford NELA a unique perspective on how judicial decisions impact the daily lives and the rights of working people.

At the outset, we wish to register our dismay that at this time, the Senate is moving forward with consideration … Read More

Fair Act Introduced

NELA applauds the leadership of Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Representatives Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in introducing the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act (FAIR Act)

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