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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.
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.
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 3
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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703.677.6833 | [email protected]
LET US MAKE IT HAPPEN FOR YOU!
P R O U D M W E L A S P O N S O R S I N C E 2 0 1 0
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 4
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.
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 5
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-
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 6
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
It takes hard work to win compensation for employment-related torts. Don’t let a failure to consider tax issues at settlement reduce your clients’ awards unnecessarily.
A little bit of pre-distribution planning could make a major difference in their net recovery. We make it easy by meet-ing with clients, helping them consider their payout options, and directing you and your staff through the entire process.
If your client is set to recover a multiple of their ordinary income, it is likely they will benefit from this approach. If you have a case you’d like to discuss, give us a call!
Henry Strong • Jim Klapps1828 L Street, NW Ste 800, Washington, DC 20036
202 463-1990 • toll free 800 544-5533www.jmwsettlements.com
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 7
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!
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 8
“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.
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 10
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
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 11
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.
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 12
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
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 13
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).
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 14
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].
November/December 2013 MWELA MONTHLY 15
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].