Reed Smith today announced the addition of L. Julius M. Turman as a partner in its Labor & Employment practice in the firm’s San Francisco office.
“Julius is an accomplished trial lawyer with a strong and well-rounded employment practice that includes single-plaintiff, class-action and collective-action litigation, as well as extensive labor relations experience and employment counsel,” said Sara A. Begley, Reed Smith’s Labor & Employment Practice Group Leader. “We share many common clients, and Julius is also well known to many Reed Smith lawyers across the firm. We look forward to working with him.”
Turman has represented and advised management-side clients in diverse industries in discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, trade secret, unfair competition issues, and wage and hour litigation. He also provides advice and counsel on collective bargaining negotiations and administration, grievance procedures, union organizing campaigns, and boycotts and strikes, as well as on labor aspects of mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, plant closures and relocations.
Turman represents employers in a wide range of industry sectors, including automotive, technology, airline, transportation, manufacturing, shipping, maritime, construction, retail, education, hospitality, sports and entertainment.
Christopher P. Reynolds, General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer of Toyota North America, praised Turman, stating that, “Julius is a ‘go-to’ counsel for Toyota, and he is a skilled, compelling employment law and litigation advocate. We continue to expect great things from him.”
Turman began his practice representing clients in all stages of federal court litigation under the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act, in administrative proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board and in labor arbitration. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey from 1993-98. He has served as corporate litigation counsel at Ketchum Worldwide, the global public relations firm. He returned to private practice in 2003 as a partner in the employment group in the San Francisco office of Haight Brown & Bonesteel, and, in 2006, he was recruited to Morgan Lewis & Bockius in the employment group, where he became a partner in 2009.
“Reed Smith has a proven, industry-focused approach that fosters teamwork and collaboration across practices, which addresses clients’ expectations that their legal services will be provided at the highest quality and delivered with value,” said Turman. “I am delighted to be joining a firm that fosters a tremendously collegial working environment and is both innovative in, and uniformly well-respected for, client service.”
Turman is very well respected in the San Francisco political and nonprofit community. Recently, he was elected Vice President of the San Francisco Police Commission, where he is currently serving a four-year term. Turman is also a director of two charitable organizations: Hospice by the Bay and the Positive Resource Center. He previously served as a Commissioner on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and as a board member of both the Bar Association of San Francisco and Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom.
“With the upturn in business activity throughout California and across the nation, our office has experienced an increased demand for labor and employment services, which Julius will definitely help us address,” said Raymond Cardozo, Reed Smith’s San Francisco Managing Partner. “As a known asset on the West Coast, he makes our strong employment and labor bench even more robust. He will play a key role in growing the practice on the West Coast.”
Turman received his B.G.S. from the University of Michigan in 1987, and he is a 1992 graduate of Rutgers University School of Law. After completing law school, he clerked for Judge John J. Hughes, U.S.M.J., in the District of New Jersey.
Turman is the second Labor & Employment partner to join Reed Smith recently. Mark D. Temple joined the practice in the firm’s new Houston office May 2.
Reed Smith also added two new Labor & Employment associates to its San Francisco office this week, Philip Smith, who previously worked with Turman at Morgan Lewis, and Geneva Collins, who joined separately as a staff attorney.
