Denver, September 18, 2017 — Cozen O’Connor continues to grow its national Labor & Employment Department and adds a new practice area to its Denver office as Jake Rubinstein, former executive director of employee & labor relations at the University of Chicago, joins as a member in the firm’s Denver office.
At Cozen O’Connor, Rubinstein will handle management-side labor and employment law matters for higher education clients as well as labor and employment matters for clients in other industries, including corporate and the public sector. Rubinstein will also represent higher education clients in other areas, including student and faculty cases.
For the past four years, Rubinstein served as the head of employee and labor relations for the University of Chicago where he set strategy for and advised the university’s president, provost, faculty, administrators, and HR professionals on the full range of labor and employment issues — for both union and non-union employees — and served as the university's chief labor negotiator.
Previously, he was a partner at Meckler Bulger & Tilson in Chicago where he had a strong traditional labor law practice representing employers in collective bargaining, arbitrations, union elections, and unfair labor practice proceedings. Rubinstein’s practice also involved litigating individual and class actions, including large wage and hour class and collective action cases.
At Cozen O’Connor he reunites with former Meckler Bulger & Tilson colleagues, including Cozen O’Connor’s Labor & Employment Department Co-Chair, Joe Tilson, who is based in Chicago.
“We are thrilled to welcome Jake to Cozen O'Connor and greatly look forward to practicing with him again,” said Tilson. “Jake is adept in all facets of labor and employment law, and the higher education expertise he gained during his tenure at the University of Chicago will further enhance our premier higher education practice.”
“Jake’s addition to our Denver office enables us to offer existing clients expanded legal services,” said Brad Breslau, office managing partner in Denver. “In addition, his proven capabilities in higher education will help us continue to expand that sector in the Denver area. He is a great fit for our office, and we are excited to have him join us.”
Rubinstein’s hiring also furthers Cozen O’Connor’s commitment to continuing to expand its footprint into the Mountain and Western States regions, including Colorado, California, and Washington.
“I look forward to joining Cozen O’Connor’s tremendous team of labor and employment lawyers as well as my former Chicago colleagues,” said Rubinstein. “I am eager to help grow the firm’s Denver office as well as the Labor & Employment practice nationally. As a Boulder, Colorado native, I also look forward to coming back home to practice.”
The attorneys in Cozen O’Connor’s Denver office provide a full range of services including complex commercial litigation in the areas of oil and gas, environmental, subrogation and recovery, insurance coverage, intellectual property issues, maritime, products liability, toxic tort and construction, and — with Rubinstein’s arrival — labor, employment, and higher education. Clients run the gamut from individuals and startups to Fortune 500 companies in a variety of industries including insurance, energy, technology, pharmaceutical and life sciences, and manufacturing.
Rubinstein joins the firm as it continues to expand its Labor & Employment Practice, which has more than doubled in size to over 70 attorneys since 2015, with labor and employment attorneys in every region of the country. Earlier this month, Alan Pittler, former associate general counsel of the University of Pittsburgh, joined the firm’s Pittsburgh office and Barry Kearney, former associate general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, joined the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
Earlier in the year, 22 labor and employment attorneys joined Cozen O’Connor from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Charlotte, N.C., offices. With the addition of the Buchanan Ingersoll attorneys, the firm added a new Railway Labor Practice and strengthened its Immigration and ERISA/Employee Benefits practices.
In 2015, Cozen O’Connor had one of the nation’s fastest-growing Labor & Employment departments as it added more than a dozen attorneys to the practice in its combination with Chicago-based Meckler Bulger & Tilson, in addition to nationally known Labor & Employment attorneys Susan Eisenberg and Jennifer Williams in Miami and John Ho in New York.
The expansion of its Labor & Employment practice comes amid continued strong growth for Cozen O’Connor, which recorded a 10 percent increase in revenue in 2016.
Over the past two years, the firm has made a number of large lateral acquisitions in addition to the Buchanan Ingersoll attorneys, including 50 attorneys in a merger with Chicago-based Meckler Bulger & Tilson; 14 attorneys from the nationally recognized Miami-based intellectual property boutique Feldman Gale; 10 attorneys and government professionals from Dickstein Shapiro launching the nation’s preeminent State Attorneys General Practice; and 10 attorneys from Pepper Hamilton including the “Gold Standard” in Institutional Response and a nationally prominent construction litigation group.
About Cozen O’Connor
Established in 1970 and ranked among the top 100 law firms in America, Cozen O’Connor has more than 925 attorneys who help clients manage risk and make better business decisions. The firm counsels clients on their most sophisticated legal matters in all areas of the law, including litigation, corporate and regulatory law. Representing a broad array of leading global corporations and middle market companies, Cozen O’Connor services its clients’ needs through 26 offices across two continents.
###