Senior Executive Counsel, NFIB Small Business Legal Center
Elizabeth Milito serves as Senior Executive Counsel with the National Federation of Independent Business, a position she has held since March 2004. Ms. Milito came to NFIB from the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs where she defended the agency in employment and labor lawsuits and was responsible for training and counseling managers on fair employment and HR practices. She has an extensive background in tort, medical malpractice and employment law.
Prior to serving as an attorney at the Department of Veteran's Affairs, Ms. Milito worked as a trial attorney at Nationwide Insurance Company. At Nationwide, she completed over 100 trials to verdict. Ms. Milito was the editor of notes and comments for the Maryland Law Review at the University of Maryland School of Law where she earned her Juris Doctor degree in May of 1996. Following her education, she served as a clerk to the Honorable Alan M. Wilner on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
Ms. Milito is responsible for managing litigation and amicus work for NFIB. She has testified before Congress, federal agencies, and state legislatures on the small business impact of labor and employment issues. She also comments and writes regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts. Ms. Milito frequently counsels businesses facing employment discrimination charges, wage and hour claims, wrongful termination lawsuits, and in most other areas of human resources law. She also provides and develops on-line and on-site training on a variety of employment law matters and is a frequent media spokesperson on employment and labor matters.
Partner, Balch & Bingham LLP
General Counsel to the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, Pepper Crutcher advises and advocates for a wide range of Southeast U.S., private sector employers. Pepper regularly defends employment litigation, including class and collective actions, and both defends and prosecutes unfair competition claims. Pepper’s labor law practice involves all types of NLRB proceedings, labor contract negotiation and arbitration. Pepper also helps employers, insurers, brokers, administrators and providers achieve Affordable Care Act compliance and appeal ACA tax assessments.
Mr. Crutcher has been rated "AV" by Martindale Hubbell and since 2004 has been selected to be included in Chambers USA America's Leading Lawyers for Business: The Client's Guide (Employment, Mississippi). He is also listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Intellectual Property Law and Labor & Employment Law.
Shareholder, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Maury Baskin focuses his Washington, DC-based practice on national labor policy, challenging excessive government regulation on behalf of small and large businesses, while advising employers in compliance issues. He has extensive experience in dealing with labor relations and union pressure tactics, employment discrimination and wage and hour law. He has represented a variety of industry sectors, advising clients involved in construction, government contracting, higher education, telecommunications, hospitality, security, and nonprofits.
Mr. Baskin has served as lead counsel at all levels of the federal and state courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, and has recently led successful challenges against nationwide federal labor regulations on behalf of multi-industry coalitions, including the 2016 “white collar” overtime rule and the so-called “blacklisting” rule. He has also succeeded in the courts in numerous cases involving the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Department of Labor (DOL). Mr. Baskin is the Chair of Littler's Construction Industry Group and has long represented the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) national trade association and many of its construction industry members. On their behalf, he has been one of the leading advocates against government-mandated project labor agreements, prevailing wage expansion, and union corporate campaigns.
Associate General Counsel, Service Employees International Union
Walter Kamiat is currently Associate General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a position he has held since 2004. He is SEIU’s principal counsel in the home care area, where the SEIU represents over one half million workers. He also is active in the SEIU’s appellate litigation program, including its amicus practice before the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts. Mr. Kamiat assisted in preparing DC Circuit and Fourth Circuit amicus briefs defending the NLRB Posting Rule.
In 2008, Mr. Kamiat served on the Obama Administration’s Labor Department Transition Team, performing the agency review of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Commission.
Prior to working at the SEIU, Mr. Kamiat had almost 30 years’ experience in a wide variety of positions involving labor law and labor-relations institutions. These included serving as counsel to the AFL-CIO Investment Program, a multi-billion dollar union-sponsored pension investment program investing in urban housing and economic development projects (1997-2004), as Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School, teaching and writing in labor and employment law (1994-1997), as Associate General Counsel of the AFL-CIO (1988-1994), principally focusing on Supreme Court and appellate litigation, and as an associate at Bredhoff & Kaiser in Washington, DC (1986-1988), principally representing union, employees, and labor sponsored benefit funds.
Mr. Kamiat is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he was President of the Stanford Law Review. He was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1984-1985) and to DC Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright (1983-1984).
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Shareholder, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart P.C.
Mr. Chapman serves on the Firm’s five-member Board of Directors. He is Board Certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and represents employers in all areas of labor and employment law, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, non-competition and non-disclosure covenants, leaves of absence, employment agreements and policies, union campaigns, collective bargaining, unfair labor practices, and workplace safety.
Mr. Chapman has defended clients in over 25 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including class and collective actions, and regularly provides counseling to help clients navigate both legal and practical considerations. Representative clients include Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, FedEx Office, Fossil, GameStop, Hertz, Omni Hotels, Raytheon, Texas Instruments, and Valero.
Special Counsel, Hunton & Williams
Mr. Meisburg is a former National Labor Relations Board Member and General Counsel.
Prior to joining Hunton & Williams LLP, Ronald co-chaired the labor-management relations practice at an international law firm. Over the course of his 40-year career, which began with the Office of the Solicitor of the US Department of Labor, Mr. Meisburg has handled matters arising under federal labor and employment law in complex business transactions before federal agencies and courts.
Mr. Meisburg joined the NLRB in 2004, following a recess appointment by President George W. Bush. Two years later, President Bush appointed him to a four-year term as NLRB General Counsel, a position independent from the Board. Serving under the Bush and Obama Administrations as the chief prosecutor under the National Labor Relations Act and chief administrator of the agency’s 32 regional offices, he oversaw a $280 million budget and 1,200 staff.
Ronald has been quoted as a labor law authority by numerous national publications and news organizations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, SHRM Online, Associated Press, Corporate Counsel Magazine, Bloomberg, Reuters, Employment Law 360 and BNA. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences sponsored by trade associations, professional groups and educational institutions, including the US Chamber of Commerce, numerous elite law schools and universities around the world, the Council on Labor Law Equality, Committee for a Democratic Workplace, Labor and Employment Research Association, Equal Employment Advisory Council, Human Resources Policy Association, Labor Relations Advisory Committee, National Retail Federation, Retail Leaders Industry Association, Energy and Mineral Law Foundation, American Arbitration Association and numerous bar associations. Mr. Meisburg has also been recognized by Legal500 USA.
Mr. Meisburg is admitted to practice in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Member, NLRB
Bill works with a broad range of clients, including trade associations, hospitals and other health care institutions, school districts, transportation and logistics companies and manufacturing companies.
He is a member of Littler Mendelson's Traditional Labor Practice Group and editor of the firm's traditional labor blog, Labor Relations Counsel. He also authored several amicus curiae briefs on behalf of trade associations in cases challenging state laws that allow labor unions to trespass on the private property of employers, including a landmark case now pending at the California Supreme Court.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Vice President & Legal Director, National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation
Raymond J. LaJeunesse, Jr., is Vice President and Legal Director of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a non-profit legal aid organization. He was the first Staff Attorney employed by the Foundation and has more than forty-five years of experience helping workers in litigation in federal and state courts and administrative agencies over the abuses of compulsory unionism.
Mr. LaJeunesse has argued four cases in the United States Supreme Court. Those cases include Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass’n, 500 U.S. 507 (1991), which limited the purposes for which compulsory union fees collected from public employees may lawfully be spent; Air Line Pilots Ass’n v. Miller, 523 U.S. 866 (1998), which established that unions cannot compel nonmembers to exhaust union-established remedies before going to court to challenge compulsory union fees; and Marquez v. Screen Actors Guild, 525 U.S. 33 (1998), in which the Court recognized that unions must notify employees that they can satisfy the “membership” requirement of “union shop” agreements by just paying fees for union bargaining activities and need not join and pay full dues to keep their jobs. He also was lead attorney in Hohe v. Casey, 956 F.2d 399 (3d Cir. 1992), in which more than $8.3 million in compulsory agency fees was recovered from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for a class of 57,000 nonmembers.
Mr. LaJeunesse is the author of several published articles about labor law, has testified before Congressional committees several times, and was an Advisor on the Transition Team for Labor- Related Agencies, Office of the President-Elect, in 1980-81 and a legislative aide to a member of the Virginia state legislature. He is a Vice Chairman of the Federalist Society’s Labor and Employment Law Practice Group and has spoken or debated at the Society’s National Lawyers Convention and at many Lawyers and Student Chapters on such topics as Right to Work laws, compulsory unionism arrangements, the misuse of union dues for politics, union organizing tactics (“card check” vs. secret-ballot elections), and the future of the union movement.
Shareholder, Littler Mendelson P.C.
Maury Baskin focuses his Washington, DC-based practice on national labor policy, challenging excessive government regulation on behalf of small and large businesses, while advising employers in compliance issues. He has extensive experience in dealing with labor relations and union pressure tactics, employment discrimination and wage and hour law. He has represented a variety of industry sectors, advising clients involved in construction, government contracting, higher education, telecommunications, hospitality, security, and nonprofits.
Mr. Baskin has served as lead counsel at all levels of the federal and state courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, and has recently led successful challenges against nationwide federal labor regulations on behalf of multi-industry coalitions, including the 2016 “white collar” overtime rule and the so-called “blacklisting” rule. He has also succeeded in the courts in numerous cases involving the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Department of Labor (DOL). Mr. Baskin is the Chair of Littler's Construction Industry Group and has long represented the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) national trade association and many of its construction industry members. On their behalf, he has been one of the leading advocates against government-mandated project labor agreements, prevailing wage expansion, and union corporate campaigns.
Associate General Counsel, Service Employees International Union
Walter Kamiat is currently Associate General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a position he has held since 2004. He is SEIU’s principal counsel in the home care area, where the SEIU represents over one half million workers. He also is active in the SEIU’s appellate litigation program, including its amicus practice before the Supreme Court and the federal appellate courts. Mr. Kamiat assisted in preparing DC Circuit and Fourth Circuit amicus briefs defending the NLRB Posting Rule.
In 2008, Mr. Kamiat served on the Obama Administration’s Labor Department Transition Team, performing the agency review of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Commission.
Prior to working at the SEIU, Mr. Kamiat had almost 30 years’ experience in a wide variety of positions involving labor law and labor-relations institutions. These included serving as counsel to the AFL-CIO Investment Program, a multi-billion dollar union-sponsored pension investment program investing in urban housing and economic development projects (1997-2004), as Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School, teaching and writing in labor and employment law (1994-1997), as Associate General Counsel of the AFL-CIO (1988-1994), principally focusing on Supreme Court and appellate litigation, and as an associate at Bredhoff & Kaiser in Washington, DC (1986-1988), principally representing union, employees, and labor sponsored benefit funds.
Mr. Kamiat is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he was President of the Stanford Law Review. He was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1984-1985) and to DC Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright (1983-1984).
Shareholder, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart P.C.
Mr. Chapman serves on the Firm’s five-member Board of Directors. He is Board Certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and represents employers in all areas of labor and employment law, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, non-competition and non-disclosure covenants, leaves of absence, employment agreements and policies, union campaigns, collective bargaining, unfair labor practices, and workplace safety.
Mr. Chapman has defended clients in over 25 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including class and collective actions, and regularly provides counseling to help clients navigate both legal and practical considerations. Representative clients include Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, FedEx Office, Fossil, GameStop, Hertz, Omni Hotels, Raytheon, Texas Instruments, and Valero.
Member, NLRB
Bill works with a broad range of clients, including trade associations, hospitals and other health care institutions, school districts, transportation and logistics companies and manufacturing companies.
He is a member of Littler Mendelson's Traditional Labor Practice Group and editor of the firm's traditional labor blog, Labor Relations Counsel. He also authored several amicus curiae briefs on behalf of trade associations in cases challenging state laws that allow labor unions to trespass on the private property of employers, including a landmark case now pending at the California Supreme Court.
Special Counsel, Hunton & Williams
Mr. Meisburg is a former National Labor Relations Board Member and General Counsel.
Prior to joining Hunton & Williams LLP, Ronald co-chaired the labor-management relations practice at an international law firm. Over the course of his 40-year career, which began with the Office of the Solicitor of the US Department of Labor, Mr. Meisburg has handled matters arising under federal labor and employment law in complex business transactions before federal agencies and courts.
Mr. Meisburg joined the NLRB in 2004, following a recess appointment by President George W. Bush. Two years later, President Bush appointed him to a four-year term as NLRB General Counsel, a position independent from the Board. Serving under the Bush and Obama Administrations as the chief prosecutor under the National Labor Relations Act and chief administrator of the agency’s 32 regional offices, he oversaw a $280 million budget and 1,200 staff.
Ronald has been quoted as a labor law authority by numerous national publications and news organizations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, SHRM Online, Associated Press, Corporate Counsel Magazine, Bloomberg, Reuters, Employment Law 360 and BNA. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences sponsored by trade associations, professional groups and educational institutions, including the US Chamber of Commerce, numerous elite law schools and universities around the world, the Council on Labor Law Equality, Committee for a Democratic Workplace, Labor and Employment Research Association, Equal Employment Advisory Council, Human Resources Policy Association, Labor Relations Advisory Committee, National Retail Federation, Retail Leaders Industry Association, Energy and Mineral Law Foundation, American Arbitration Association and numerous bar associations. Mr. Meisburg has also been recognized by Legal500 USA.
Mr. Meisburg is admitted to practice in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Asserting Influence and Power in the 21st Century: The NLRB Focuses on Assisting Non-Union Employees
Elizabeth Milito
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Worker Centers: Charities or Labor Organizations Masquerading as Charities?—and the Impact of an IRS
Heidi Abegg
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Affordable Care Act Compliance: Say “Hello” to Collective Bargaining Obligations
R. Pepper Crutcher, R Crutcher
Related Links: UC Berkely Labor Center, The Affordable Care Act: A Guide for Union Negotiators...
NLRB Posting Regulations - Podcast
Maury Baskin, Walter Kamiat, Dean Reuter
On August 30, 2011, with the then-one Republican member dissenting, the National Labor Relations Board...
The NLRB and Class Action Waivers: D.R. Horton v. NLRB - Podcast
Ron Chapman, Ronald E. Meisburg, William J. Emanuel, Dean Reuter
This case involves an epic clash between two federal statutes enacted many decades ago. On...
NLRB Posting Regulations
Engage Volume 13, Issue 3 October 2012
*Online-Only Issue* ADMINISTRATIVE LAW & REGULATION Policy Implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care...
The NLRB and Class Action Waivers: D.R. Horton v. NLRB
Union Organizing and the NLRB Under President Obama
Raymond J. LaJeunesse
Note from the Editor: This paper analyzes union organizing and the NLRB under the Obama...