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Goldberg Kohn Principal Michael Sullivan has been named an Employment Law Trailblazer by The National Law Journal. Mr. Sullivan, who leads Goldberg Kohn's Labor & Employment Practice, was honored for his long-standing and precedential work on behalf of charter schools throughout the country.
With the spread of charter schools across the United States, Mr. Sullivan's interest in education reform and labor relations led to his belief that conflicts would arise between charter schools and teachers 'unions. This drew him to a practice representing charter schools in labor management issues, including the precedential NLRB case establishing the right to elections in Chicago-based charter schools.
"I knew there would be some strife, and we got ahead of it with some educational seminars preparing [Chicago-based charter schools] for how to deal with teachers' unions."
"I knew there would be some strife, and we got ahead of it with some educational seminars preparing [Chicago-based charter schools] for how to deal with teachers' unions," he says. "We now represent more than 25 charter schools on labor employment issues."
Sullivan's interest in education reform actually started in high school, where he was on the curriculum committee as a non-voting member -- even testifying in the Illinois State Capitol at a young age.
"One of the attractions of Goldberg Kohn is that one attorney founded one of the first charter schools in Illinois and another was a founder of an organization for charter schools. It was an opportunity to link my passion with my vocation."
The Employment Law Trailblazer list is published in the March 2020 edition of The National Law Journal.
