Cozen O’Connor continues its western expansion, adding veteran employment litigator Craig Schloss as a member in its San Diego office and national Labor & Employment Department. Schloss was most recently a principal at Jackson Lewis LLP in San Diego.
Focusing on employment and trade secret litigation, Schloss has extensive experience litigating wrongful termination cases, employee unfair competition/trade secrets disputes, wage and hour class actions, and discrimination, disability accommodation and sexual harassment lawsuits. He also practices before the National Labor Relations Board regarding labor matters on behalf of management.
He joined Jackson Lewis in 2012 as the office managing partner. Prior to joining Jackson Lewis, Schloss led the Employment and Labor Group at Morrison & Foerster’s San Diego office and served as the office managing partner during a period of rapid growth for that office.
Schloss is very active in the San Diego community. He is the immediate past president of the San Diego Jewish Community Center and remains on the JCC board and executive committee. He was on the San Diego Symphony board for 15 years and served as chair of the board. He is the incoming chair of the San Diego chapter of the Labor and Employer Relations Association (LERA).
“We are thrilled to welcome Craig to Cozen O’Connor,” said Cozen O’Connor’s Labor & Employment Department Co-Chair Joe Tilson. “He is very experienced in employment and trade secret litigation and is well known in the San Diego legal community and beyond. A lawyer of Craig’s caliber is a key addition to our San Diego office and furthers the firm’s goal of expanding its California presence as well as continuing to grow our national labor and employment practice.”
Schloss’ hiring furthers Cozen O’Connor’s commitment to continuing to expand its West Coast footprint. The firm recently added a fourth office in California in Santa Monica earlier this month when 10 real estate and commercial litigation attorneys from the Los Angeles firm of Gilchrist & Rutter joined the firm. Cozen O’Connor also has offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
“I look forward to joining Cozen O’Connor’s rapidly growing team of first-rate national labor and employment lawyers, as well as my accomplished new colleagues in the San Diego office,” said Schloss. “I am eager to help in the continued growth of the firm’s San Diego office and the L&E department nationally.
Schloss added: “I was drawn to Cozen O’Connor because of the caliber of their attorneys, like the L&E Department Co-Chairs Joe Tilson and Tom Giotto. The firm’s strong commitment to expanding its L&E department in general, and in particular on the West Coast, is exciting and provides me with a unique opportunity to practice with top-notch attorneys at reasonable rates. I’m really impressed that Joe Tilson is going to be the ABA L&E chair in 2018. That says a lot about where this firm’s L&E department is going, unlike other large full-service firms who have severely downsized their L&E departments. In addition, the firm’s full suite of practice areas will considerably enhance my practice, and allow me to offer my clients access to additional practice areas.”
Schloss joins the firm as it continues to expand its Labor & Employment Practice, which has more than doubled in size to more than 70 attorneys since 2015, with labor & employment attorneys in every region of the country. Recent additions include Jake Rubinstein, former counsel at University of Chicago, who joined the Denver office, Alan Pittler, former associate general counsel of the University of Pittsburgh who joined the firm’s Pittsburgh office, and Barry Kearney, former associate general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, who joined the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.
Earlier in the year, 22 labor and employment attorneys joined Cozen O’Connor from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Charlotte offices. With the addition of the Buchanan Ingersoll attorneys, the firm added a new Railway Labor Practice and strengthened its immigration and ERISA/Employee Benefits practices.
In 2015, Cozen O’Connor had one of the nation’s fastest-growing Labor & Employment departments as it added more than a dozen attorneys to the practice in its combination with Chicago-based Meckler Bulger & Tilson, in addition to nationally known Labor & Employment attorneys Susan Eisenberg and Jennifer Williams in Miami and John Ho in New York.
The expansion of its Labor & Employment practice comes amid continued strong growth for Cozen O’Connor, which recorded a 10 percent increase in revenue in 2016. In the last nine months, the firm has recruited 73 partners and 60 associates. Following a strategy focused on three elements — developing unique practices, diversifying the revenue stream with non-legal services, and investing in technology — the firm has plans to grow headcount to between 700 and 1,000 lawyers nationwide.
Over the past two years, the firm has made a number of large lateral acquisitions in addition to the Buchanan Ingersoll attorneys, including 50 attorneys in a merger with Chicago-based Meckler Bulger & Tilson; 14 attorneys from the nationally recognized Miami-based intellectual property boutique Feldman Gale; 10 attorneys and government professionals from Dickstein Shapiro launching the nation’s preeminent State Attorneys General Practice; and 10 attorneys from Pepper Hamilton including the “Gold Standard” in Institutional Response and a nationally prominent construction litigation group.
Source: www.cozen.com
