Seyfarth Shaw Elevates 14 to Partner

Contact:
Kevin Livingston, National Director of Public Relations
(312) 460-6681 / (212) 218-5272, klivingston@seyfarth.com

CHICAGO (February 10, 2011) – Seyfarth Shaw, one of America’s leading law firms, announced today that it has elevated 14 senior associates to partner effective January 1, 2011.

The new partners are Tracy Billows, Labor and Employment, Chicago; Kate Birenbaum, Labor and Employment, Houston; Christie Del Rey-Cone, Labor and Employment, New York; Carrie Grove, Employee Benefits, Los Angeles; Jean-Noël Ben Hamou, Labor and Employment, New York; Erik Rodriguez, Labor and Employment, Atlanta; Leslie Solondz, Labor and Employment, Atlanta; Amanda Sonneborn, Labor and Employment, Chicago; Jason Stiehl, Litigation, Chicago; Erik von Zeipel, Litigation, Los Angeles; David White, Litigation, Los Angeles; Kevin Woolf, Real Estate, Atlanta; Ann Marie Zaletel, Labor and Employment, Los Angeles; Candice Zee, Labor and Employment, Los Angeles.

"We are pleased to welcome these talented attorneys into the partnership,” stated J. Stephen Poor, Chair and Managing Partner of Seyfarth Shaw. “Our newest partners, representing a wide spectrum of the firm’s practice areas, share our dedication to delivering top-quality legal services and providing value to our clients.”

Meet our new partners:

Tracy Billows brings a unique perspective to her clients given that she was a corporate HR executive prior to becoming an attorney. Tracy concentrates her practice on representing and counseling employers in a variety of areas of labor and employment law. She represents employers in single plaintiff, multi-plaintiff, and class action litigation matters related to employment discrimination claims under Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), and similar state discrimination laws. She also represents management in matters arising under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA).

Kate Birenbaum in Houston advises clients on employment law matters, and represents them in administrative matters as well as litigation. Her focus is on complex litigation matters, and she has been involved in the defense of class actions brought under Title VII, as well as collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. She also represents clients in single plaintiff cases.

Christie Del Rey-Cone has extensive experience in auditing and reviewing employee populations in order to assess the validity of exemption classifications under the FLSA and other statutes, as well as the validity of independent contractor classifications. Christie also provides clients with day-to-day advice on a wide range of employment law issues and has supervised internal investigations into employee misconduct. She represents employers in employment litigation matters involving claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, constructive discharge, and wage and hour and ERISA claims. Her litigation matters include single plaintiff, multiple plaintiff, class action, and collective action matters in federal and state court.

Carrie Grove is a partner in the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation department of the Los Angeles office and has more than 12 years of experience as an ERISA attorney. Carrie’s practice focuses on multiemployer pension and benefit plans, and includes the areas of fiduciary responsibility, benefit claims, prohibited transactions, agreements with third-party providers, and withdrawal liability and merger and spinoff issues. She is responsible for negotiating investment management agreements for separate accounts and group trusts. Carrie also routinely reviews private equity and hedge fund limited partnership agreements and related documentation, and negotiates side letters that contain provisions that afford greater protection to the ERISA plans she represents. She also has experience with advising employers on the topics of COBRA, health care reform, the Pension Protection Act and domestic partner issues.

Jean-Noël Ben Hamou is a licensed Canadian attorney and foreign legal consultant in New York in the Immigration group and manages the firm’s Outbound Business Immigration product lines. His practice focuses exclusively on Canadian and other foreign country immigration issues. Jean-Noël assists organizations with securing temporary or permanent status for their employees in Canada and in other foreign countries. He is experienced in handling high-volume cases and negotiating agreements with senior foreign immigration officials at ports-of-entry, visa offices and pre-approval units to streamline the immigration process. He maintains extensive contacts with key senior immigration officials and has conducted numerous conferences and seminars on Canadian business immigration in Canada and the United States. 

Erik Rodriguez is a partner in the Labor and Employment department in the Atlanta office. His practice is focused on both traditional labor and employment litigation. Erik has represented employers in proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, including unfair labor practice charges and union representation cases; grievance arbitrations; and collective bargaining negotiations. He also handles jury and non-jury litigation in state and federal courts in discrimination cases based on age, race, gender, religion, national origin and disability. Erik provides labor and employment law drafting and counseling, and represents employers in administrative investigations and litigation before local, state and federal equal employment opportunity agencies.

Leslie Solondz is an employment partner and co-manages the OFCCP and Affirmative Action Compliance Team. She devotes a significant portion of her practice to Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) compliance, affirmative action, pay equity, and workplace diversity. Leslie represents federal contractors and subcontractors in connection with OFCCP compliance evaluations, including corporate management reviews, from desk audits through onsite evaluations and off-site reviews; negotiates favorable conciliation agreements; defends clients in enforcement proceedings resulting from OFCCP audits; oversees the development of affirmative action programs; assists clients with creating legally-compliant recruiting, selection, applicant tracking, pre-employment testing, performance management, compensation, and other employment processes and procedures.

Amanda Sonneborn is particularly well-versed in the field of labor relations law. Within this arena, she has represented clients in unfair labor practice proceedings, contractual arbitrations, representation proceedings, and Section 301 litigation. She also has experience advising clients during union organizing campaigns.  In addition, she provides clients with day-to-day labor relations advice on a wide spectrum of topics, including neutrality agreements and corporate campaigns. Amanda also has considerable experience in the area of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) litigation.  Her ERISA and employee benefits litigation experience includes defense of claims for benefits, breach of fiduciary duty claims, cash balance plan claims, breach of contract claims, and ERISA Section 510 employment discrimination claims. Amanda devotes a considerable amount of her practice to the litigation of class-action and multi-plaintiff claims. 

Jason Stiehl is a litigator who represents clients in complex commercial disputes involving trade secrets and restrictive covenants, unfair competition, corporate espionage, contract, and intellectual property claims in both state and federal court. He also has extensive nationwide class action experience, including involvement in multi-district litigation. Jason has successfully obtained and defended preliminary and permanent injunctions in several jurisdictions. His client experience includes nationwide representation in the pharmaceutical, consulting, banking, transportation, manufacturing, advertising, real estate, employment, medical equipment, computer, and automotive industries. His appellate experience includes presenting oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Erik von Zeipel maintains a broad litigation and counseling practice representing corporate entities in a wide variety of business disputes.  Mr. von Zeipel has significant experience in complex litigation, including class action lawsuits, breach of contract, unfair competition law, construction, and antitrust. While in law school, Erik studied international, European Union and Chinese law in England, the Netherlands and China.

David White is in the Litigation department and his practice focuses on issues regarding electronic discovery as well as international and domestic data privacy and security, and other IT-related legal issues. He is certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals as a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), and often advises clients in this regard. David’s electronic discovery practice is dedicated to both litigation response and readiness planning. He has more than a decade of experience assisting corporations in multiple sectors in preparing for and responding to discovery in litigation and regulatory matters, including electronic document preservation, production, spoliation mitigation, and computer forensic investigations. He is a contributing member of the Sedona Conference, and speaks regularly across the country on eDiscovery and data privacy issues.

Kevin Woolf is a real estate attorney who has helped clients purchase, sell, lease, and develop property in over 40 states, Canada and Mexico. Of particular note, Kevin has handled outparcel development transactions for national financial services and quick-service restaurant clients, negotiated multiple office leases for LEED-certified space (most recently in the Empire State Building), negotiated over 2,500,000 square feet worth of industrial warehouse leases, and assisted with the foreclosure, stabilization and repositioning of multiple REO properties. In 2007, Kevin received his Green Belt from the Six Sigma Academy in a unique client-focused program designed to increase the efficient delivery of legal services.

Ann Marie Zaletel advises employers in various aspects of labor and employment law. Her practice has a particular emphasis in the area of advising employers on human resources and employment relations, employee handbooks and personnel policies, discipline and termination decisions, position statements and internal investigations, including wage and hour issues, reasonable accommodation issues, leaves of absence issues, and compliance with state and federal employment laws.

Candice Zee is a member of the Labor and Employment department and Single-Plaintiff Litigation and Wage and Hour practice groups. She has substantial experience in defending employers against class action and single-plaintiff claims for alleged wage and hour violations, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and violation of public policy, as well as workplace torts, including defamation, emotional distress, and interference with contractual relations. Candice has taken and defended numerous depositions and conducted several factual investigations. She frequently appears and argues on behalf of clients at state and federal courts. She also has extensive trial experience and has second-chaired multiple trials.

Seyfarth Shaw has over 750 attorneys located in 10 offices throughout the United States, including: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., as well as internationally in London. Seyfarth Shaw provides a broad range of legal services in the areas of labor and employment, employee benefits, litigation, corporate, and real estate. The firm’s practice reflects virtually every industry and segment of the country’s business and social fabric. Clients include over 300 of the Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, newspapers and other media, hotels, health care organizations, airlines and railroads. The firm also represents a number of federal, state and local governmental and educational entities. For more information, please visit www.seyfarth.com.
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