The firm is proud to announce that U.S. News & World Report once again recognized Heller, Huron, Chertkof & Salzman as a "Tier 1" law firm in the areas of civil rights and employment law for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Heller, Huron, Chertkof & Salzman has been named to the U.S. News & World Report list each time it has been published, beginning in 2011, and the firm is proud to once again receive this honor.
Heller, Huron, Chertkof & Salzman is pleased to welcome Julia Quinn as an associate in our firm. Julia is a 2014 cum laude graduate of the University of Texas Law School. Following graduation, she clerked for Judge Alan Kay of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and later served as a Reproductive Justice Fellow at the National Health Law Program, where she worked on legal issues involving reproductive rights and enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the health care context.
Best Lawyers, a partner publication of The Washington Post and one of the oldest peer review guides to the legal profession worldwide, has named firm partner Stephen Chertkof as the Lawyer of the Year for 2017 in the area of Civil Rights Law.
Yesterday, Heller, Huron, Chertkof & Salzman won a $1.6 million jury verdict in Fairfax County, Virginia. The client, Thad Kemp, had brought suit against his former employer UNICOM for wrongful discharge and breach of contract. The jury awarded Mr. Kemp $1 million in punitive damages.
Kemp worked for UNICOM for nearly ten years, and the CEO, Corry Hong, fired him for refusing to waive his right to commissions he had already earned. Kemp sold leasing arrangements to federal agencies for computer equipment, and in 2013 he reached an oral agreement with UNICOM that he would be paid commissions in line with an established company scale. He then landed a deal that brought millions in profits to UNICOM, and the company reneged on its promise of commissions. Instead, Hong, the CEO, sought to intimidate Kemp into releasing his claims to the commissions, and threatened to fire him and blackball him in his career of federal contracting. When Kemp refused to waive his rights to commissions, Hong fired him.
The case was tried by Steve Chertkof, Rick Salzman and Cassandra Lenning.
The Washington Nationals have reinstated three employees who during Opening Week sued the Nats for religious discrimination. The three – Tony Green, Lloyd Cobey and Ralph Jones – are Seventh-day Adventists. Their religious belief does not permit working on their Sabbath (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday).
Heller, Huron, Chertkof & Salzman has obtained a significant settlement for its client, a State Department employee who, when on detail with the FBI, was the victim of racial discrimination. The settlement was reached after the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations found that the firm’s client had proven that the FBI subjected him to a racially offensive hostile work environment, which included twice hanging nooses in his workplace and coworkers who made racially charged and insensitive remarks. The client was assigned to a joint task force with the FBI and was subjected to racial discrimination throughout his tenure with the Bureau. As part of the settlement, the client received $100,000 in compensatory damages as well as all attorneys’ fees and costs.
Heller Huron and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs wins trial for Aieda McCallum. Mrs. McCallum was wrongfully fired after disclosing she was pregnant.