Pittsburgh, PA, September 5, 2017 — Cozen O’Connor continues to boost both its national Labor & Employment Department and its Pittsburgh office with the addition of Alan Pittler, former associate general counsel of the University of Pittsburgh, as a member in the firm’s Pittsburgh office.
At Cozen O’Connor, Pittler will handle all aspects of management-side labor and employment law matters for higher education clients as well as those in other sectors, including hospitality, health care, technology, and energy.
Pittler served as associate general counsel for the University of Pittsburgh for the past nine years. Previously, he was a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. At Cozen O’Connor, he reunites with former colleagues from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in Cozen O’Connor’s newly opened Pittsburgh office, including the firm’s Labor & Employment Co-Chair Thomas Giotto.
“We are so pleased to welcome Alan to Cozen O'Connor, and look forward to practicing with him again,” said Giotto. “He is a superb lawyer and very well respected in western Pennsylvania and beyond. Alan’s broad background in all aspects of traditional labor and employment law, combined with his experience at University of Pittsburgh, will make him an invaluable resource to our clients, especially those in the higher education industry.”
His hiring furthers Cozen O’Connor’s commitment to expanding its footprint throughout Pennsylvania. In May, the firm launched a new full-service office in Pittsburgh with three former leaders of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, including Giotto, corporate attorney Jeremy Garvey and complex commercial and health care litigator Gene Giotto. The firm now has a statewide presence in Pennsylvania with three major offices in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg.
“I am thrilled to join Cozen O’Connor’s outstanding nationwide team of labor and employment lawyers and my former colleagues in Pittsburgh,” said Pittler. “I look forward to helping to grow the firm’s new Pittsburgh office as well as the Labor & Employment practice nationally.”
Pittler joins the firm as it continues to expand its Labor & Employment Practice, which has doubled in size to more than 70 attorneys since 2015, with labor and employment attorneys in every region of the country — distributed throughout the firm’s 26 offices. Last month, Barry Kearney, former associate general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, joined the firm’s Washington, D.C., office and Vincent Candiello, a veteran labor and employment litigator from Post & Schell, joined the firm’s Harrisburg office.
Earlier in the year, 22 labor and employment attorneys joined Cozen O’Connor from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia 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. With Pittsburgh’s thriving technology, higher education and health care sectors, Cozen O’Connor expects to continue to grow its office in Pittsburgh substantially over the next year.
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 825 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.
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