Melissa A. Siebert concentrates her practice in employment litigation, class and collective action litigation, and employment law counseling. Melissa’s combined legal and human resources/business experience allows her to provide effective and efficient counsel on a variety of strategic and day-to-day issues, including the interaction between the FMLA, ADA and workers’ compensation; restrictive covenants; company-wide policy creation and implementation; employee investigations; discipline and termination; and employment agreements.
She also has substantial experience representing employers in labor matters, both as in-house and outside counsel. Melissa focuses on class and collective action litigation, representing employers involved in significant EEOC “pattern and practice” investigations/lawsuits, and putative class/collective actions under the FLSA, the FCRA and state laws.
Experience :
- Representing a national banking association in nationwide collective wage and hour action and state law class action claims alleging misclassification of loan officers.
- Successfully represented several national employers in “pattern and practice” investigations before the EEOC alleging racial discrimination due to claimed disparate impact of post-offer background screening. Findings were issued in employers’ favor without conciliation or litigation.
- Successfully defended a federal court FLSA collective action lawsuit involving the employer’s call center by implementing tender strategy, resulting in dismissal of the entire lawsuit, including putative plaintiffs’ collective action claims, without payment of attorneys’ fees.
- Settled a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging an employer’s use of preemployment background screens under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for a nominal amount.
Education :
- M.B.A., Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, 2000
- J.D., Northwestern University School of Law, 1992
- B.A., Bucknell University, 1989
Admissions :
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
- U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois
Cost
Rate : $$$