Firm News
Employment Law in Northern and Central New Jersey
On May 8, 2013, Claudia Reis was quoted in the widely-read legal publication Law360 concerning Governor Christie’s conditional veto of the social networking legislation that prohibits employers from demanding access to employees social networking accounts by removing the provision allowing for a private cause of action.
On May 6, 2013, Claudia Reis’s comments concerning Governor Christie’s conditional veto of the social networking legislation were included in an article entitled Governor Wants Narrowing of Bill Shielding Social Media IDs published in the New Jersey Law Journal.
On April 19, 2013, Claudia Reis gave a presentation to the Employment Section of the New Jersey Association for Justice at the Annual Boardwalk Seminar concerning how to successfully defeat defense counsel motions asserting that employees are not entitled to the protections of CEPA, New Jersey’s Whistleblower law, if their whistleblowing occurs within the scope of their job duties.
On April 18, 2013, Claudia Reis participated as plaintiff’s counsel in a mock trial concerning a sexual harassment case in which she gave the opening statement and cross-examined the individual defendant harasser at the Annual Boardwalk Seminar of the New Jersey Association for Justice.
On April 9, 2013, Christopher Lenzo spoke on a panel discussing employment law issues at the New Jersey Superior Court Civil Division Education Conference. The panel included three sitting New Jersey Superior Court Judges and the audience was composed entirely of New Jersey Superior Court Judges and Civil Division Managers.
On March 28, 2013, the Plaintiff in Seibert v. Quest Diagnostics, represented by Glen Savits, defeated a summary judgment motion allowing her to proceed to trial on her ERISA severance claim and her New Jersey age discrimination claim. In the Opinion of Judge Kathryn Hayden of the Federal District Court of New Jersey, it was found that the plaintiff had provided sufficient evidence to proceed where she was claiming that her employer developed a company-wide plan to terminate older sales people to develop a younger sales force and then manipulated its performance standards so that it could fire these long-time employees without giving them severance. See, Seibert Summary Judgment Order and Opinion.
In March 2013, Jon Green, Glen Savits, and Christopher Lenzo were once again selected as New Jersey Super Lawyers in the fields of Employment & Labor Law and Employment Litigation for Plaintiffs through a poll of New Jersey lawyers conducted by New Jersey Monthly magazine and the publisher Law & Politics. *
In March 2013, Claudia Reis was once again selected as a New Jersey Rising Star in the fields of Employment and Labor Law and Employment Litigation for Plaintiffs through a poll of New Jersey lawyers conducted by New Jersey Monthly magazine and the publisher Law & Politics. This is the eighth year in a row in which Ms. Reis was selected for this honor.*
On March 12, 2013, Claudia Reis was interviewed by the news department of WBGO (88.3 FM) concerning Governor Christie’s proposed change to the unemployment compensation program regulations that, if passed, will require claimants to search for job openings on a state-run on-line jobs board called Jobs4Jersey.com.
On March 5, 2013, Christopher Lenzo was Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Attorney. That distinction is attained based on references from judges and other attorneys, and through passing a written examination.
On February 25, 2013, the New Jersey Law Journal published an article authored by Claudia Reis entitled “CEPA’s Phantom Exception Why whistling while you work is protected under CEPA”. See NJ Law Journal Article 2-25-13.
On January 8, 2013, Glen Savits was appointed Plaintiffs’ Membership Co-Chair of the Employment Rights and Responsibilities Committee of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association and Christopher Lenzo was appointed Plaintiffs’ Co-Chair of the Disabilities and Leaves of Absence Subcommittee of the same organization.
On December 23, 2012, Glen Savits provided comments for ABC World News Tonight on a story about a ruling by the Supreme Court of Iowa that ruled it was legal for an employer to fire a dental assistant because he found her “too attractive” and therefore a threat to his marriage. Mr. Savits felt that the decision harkened back to a time when women could routinely be discriminated against in the workplace based simply on their looks. The following is a video of the story and Mr. Savits’s comments:
On December 14, 2012, Christopher Lenzo spoke to the Forensic Interest Group of the New Jersey Psychological Association about issues relating to the use of mental health providers and expert witnesses to prove emotional damages in employment law cases.
On November 1, 2012, US News & World Report listed Green, Savits & Lenzo as one of the Best Law Firms in the country for the third year in a row. The firm was ranked in Tier 1 in the New Jersey Metropolitan Area for labor and employment law litigation and Tier 2 in the New Jersey Metropolitan Area for representation of individuals in employment law matters.*
On October 19, 2012, Claudia Reis was a moderator of and presenter for the Annual Conference of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association. Ms. Reis was also a speaker on and the moderator of a panel discussing the use of experts in employment law cases.
On October 19, 2012, Christopher Lenzo spoke at the Annual Conference of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association. Mr. Lenzo moderated a panel discussion regarding legal ethics issues in employment law cases.
On September 20, 2012, Claudia Reis testified before the Senate Labor Committee in support of a law that would prohibit employers from requiring employees to disclose their social networking user names or passwords. An excerpt of her testimony was quoted in a NJ.com article concerning the proposed legislation.
In September 2012, Christopher Lenzo was designated 2013 Lawyer of the Year in the field of Employment Law-Individuals for the Newark Metropolitan Area by Best Lawyers in America. Only a single lawyer in each practice area and designated metropolitan area is honored as Lawyer of the Year. Lawyers being honored as Lawyer of the Year are selected based on particularly impressive voting averages received during the exhaustive peer-review assessments that Best Lawyers in America conducts with thousands of leading lawyers each year.*
In August 2012, Christopher Lenzo was selected by his peers in the labor and employment law bar for inclusion in the Best Lawyers in America® in the field of representing Individuals in Employment Law and the field of Labor and Employment Law Litigation for the eighth year in a row. (Copyright 2012 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, SC). Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 36,000 leading attorneys cast almost 4.4 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”*
On July 16, 2012, Claudia Reis was elected President of National Employment Lawyers Association/New Jersey (NELA/NJ). NELA/NJ is comprised of attorneys who represent employees in claims against their employers and committed to protecting and expanding the legal rights of workers in the State of New Jersey.
On July 16, 2012, Christopher Lenzo spoke at a seminar entitled “Labor and Employment Law Summer Institute” for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. Mr. Lenzo discussed employment discrimination law.
On May 18, 2012, Claudia Reis participated on a panel at the New Jersey State Bar Annual Convention that presented a seminar on Winters v. North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue, a case in which the Appellate Division held that a Civil Service Commission’s finding upholding the termination of an employee’s employment did not collaterally estop (i.e., prevent) that employee from pursuing a whistleblower claim under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act for that termination.
Jon Green, Christopher Lenzo, and Claudia Reis each had articles published in the Spring 2012 Edition of the Labor & Employment Quarterly. Mr. Green’s article was entitled “Contingency Fee Enhancements Under New Jersey Attorney Fee-Shifting Statutes Are Alive And Well”, Mr. Lenzo’s article was entitled “Remittitur Motions After He v. Miller: A Three Judge Supreme Court Attack On Juries, Trial Lawyers, And Due Process Rights”, and Ms. Reis’s article was entitled “The Game Changer” and addressed the recent Appellate Division decision in White v. Starbucks, which stands for the proposition that employees who blow the whistle on illegal conduct within the scope of their job duties are not entitled to the protections of CEPA.
*No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey. For Martindale-Hubbell methodology, see www.martindale.com. For Super Lawyers and Rising Stars methodology, see www.superlawyers.com. For Best Lawyers methodology, see www.bestlawyers.com. For Best Law Firms methodology, see www.bestlawfirms.usnews.com.
Green, Savits & Lenzo, LLC
35 Airport Road
Morristown, NJ 07960
Phone: (973) 695-7777
Fax: (973) 695-7788
Email
Our employment law firm proudly serves all of Northern and Central New Jersey, including the communities of Morristown, Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Edison, Woodbridge, Trenton, and Princeton, and the Counties of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union, and Warren.
