Discrimination Complaints by Female Attorneys - Can We Stem the Tide?

Lawsuits by female attorneys against their employers continue to be filed on a regular basis.

 

• Are private employers targeted? What about public employers? 

• What claims are being alleged? Are all the claims the same? 

• Are the cases being filed as individual claims or as class actions?

• What are the outcomes? Does the employee/attorney ever win? 

• How can my firm or I avoid these types of claims?

 

This interactive program will review selected cases to provide an understanding of the varied bases for these cases, the allegations made, and their outcomes. The participants will be polled for their opinions on several of the fact patterns. Lessons learned from these cases will be shared so that the participants can take steps to avoid these types of claims in the future.

 

 

Presenter Bios  

 

Hope A. Comisky is a Member of Griesing Law, LLC and Chair of the Firm’s Employment and Ethics & Professional Responsibility practice groups. She also serves as General Counsel for the Firm, handling professional responsibility matters and risk management initiatives. Hope is a top-ranked employment attorney and an experienced arbiter with over thirty-five years of employment and litigation experience. She counsels clients on employment issues, provides training to managers and staff and offers strategic advice on employment litigation matters. Furthermore, Hope has extensive experience arbitrating and mediating employment and commercial disputes. She is also included on the American Arbitration Association’s National Roster of Arbitrators, CPR’s Panel of Distinguished Neutrals, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Program. She is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and the current chair of its selection committee for the Third Circuit. 

 

Hope has more than a decade of experience providing professional responsibility advice to lawyers and law firms. Hope previously served as the lead professional responsibility attorney and then as General Counsel for a 450+ attorney firm for over a decade, where she chaired the Professional Responsibility Committee, providing real-time advice and educational programs to hundreds of attorneys on all aspects of the rules of professional conduct. Hope also provides ethics opinions to lawyers and law firms and conducted training for in-house lawyers.

 

Hope has been regularly recognized by Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers for her work in employment law. Notably, she was named “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers for Labor and Employment and Employment Law – Management in Philadelphia. Hope was also chosen as a Philadelphia Business Journal Best of the Bar honoree for her work in employment litigation.  Furthermore, she was recognized as a Labor and Employment Star by Benchmark Litigation.  

 

Hope is also a frequent lecturer and author on employment law and professional responsibility topics. Hope has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, teaching professional responsibility seminars. She has also spoken at the Northeast Regional Employment Law Institute for many years, lecturing on various topics including sexual harassment, defamation in the employment context and tort claims arising from employee terminations. In addition, she has published several articles for the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law.

 

Before joining the Firm, Hope was a partner at three prominent law firms in Philadelphia, including serving as general counsel at one of her prior firms.

 

Hope received her B.A. from Cornell University and J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After law school, Hope was a law clerk for the Honorable Joseph L. McGlynn, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.