30 www.lawyer-monthly.com Lawyer Monthly Women in Law Awards 2024 of mental and emotional distress damages, and even back pay can be a little complicated if there are issues with mitigation or constructive discharge. But fundamentally, despite these differences, all of the work I do is about the people involved – everyone has a story and most of the time, litigation is a long and emotionally exhausting way to tell that story. Approaching each case, whether it’s on behalf of 1 or 1,000 people, requires an understanding of the person behind the case and as a practitioner, my goal is always to meet my clients where they are and help them move forward in a way that results in justice, as each client defines that for themselves. Through your legal advocacy, your clients have recovered millions in lost wages. Beyond financial recoveries, how do you measure the success of your interventions? A lot of times, the non-monetary components of a resolved case are more important than the monetary recovery. It’s important for clients to receive financial recovery because that is the remedy the law provides for employment law violations but clients also want to feel heard and validated so they can close the difficult chapter and move forward with their lives. Success for me is measured by how my clients feel when the case is over. Do they have closure? Do they feel like I put forward the best evidence we had? Do they feel like they had a chance to tell their story and have it evaluated fairly and honestly? These things matter to clients and in order for me to feel like I achieved the “right” outcome, I want to know that the client is in a better place than when they came to me. What motivated you to specialize in representing employees affected by discrimination and wage theft after completing law school at Georgetown? Well, it wasn’t my original plan! I graduated in 2009, during the financial crisis and when law firms were rescinding offers, which happened to me. I had not planned to work in the field of labor and employment, but when I started looking for work in Milwaukee, Hawks Quindel had an opening, and I realized that it was an area of interest for me. It turns out it was exactly where I was meant to be, and what I thought was the worst thing to happen (having my offer rescinded) worked out for the best! Over the past decade, your practice has focused on federal class action wage litigation and individual discrimination. How do you approach these cases differently as a practitioner and are there any similarities? Federal class action wage litigation is often a “by the numbers” and rule-based type of litigation. There is a way that wages must be paid; it’s governed by statute, and if it’s violated, there are mathematical models that we can create to help us value a claim. In contrast, individual employment discrimination cases are often difficult to evaluate in terms Labor and Employment Lawyer of the Year
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