JUSTIN M. SWARTZ, a partner at Outten & Golden LLP and Co-Chair of its Class Action Practice Group, represents employees in class action wage/hour and discrimination cases, as well as individual discrimination cases and other employment matters. He is also Co-Chair of the firm’s Public Interest Committee and a member of its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Workplace Rights Practice Group and its Discrimination and Retaliation Practice Group.
Mr. Swartz currently represents workers in overtime lawsuits against CVS, Boston Market, Bovis, E*Trade, Family Dollar, TD Ameritrade, Key Bank, Starbucks, JP Morgan Chase, Gristede’s, Duane Reade, Tyson Foods, and other major companies. He also represents thousands of restaurant workers in overtime and tip theft cases, low-wage cleaning workers in their claims that large contractors failed to pay them overtime compensation for their work cleaning buildings around Ground Zero in 2001, and entertainers and servers who have worked at Scores and Penthouse Executive Club nightclubs. Among his recent employment discrimination matters are discrimination claims against companies that have refused to hire minorities with criminal records, including an EEOC charge against Madison Square Garden; systemic gender discrimination claims against a major utility company; and several individual race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and national origin discrimination cases. Mr. Swartz has represented hundreds of female and African American stockbrokers in nationwide discrimination class action lawsuits against the country’s leading brokerage firms, including Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Smith Barney.
Mr. Swartz frequently works with non-profit organizations on public interest matters including successfully representing a formerly incarcerated security guard in a licensing hearing in conjunction with MFY Legal Services and representing three low-wage immigrant women in sexual harassment, assault and battery, and overtime claims as co-counsel with the ACLU Women's Rights Project. He has co-counseled with, and performed pro bono services for, The Legal Aid Society, South Brooklyn Legal Services, Manhattan Legal Services, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Legal Momentum, NYLAG, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and MFY Legal Services as a volunteer attorney at its legal clinics. Mr. Swartz is also part of the Lambda Legal Cooperating Attorney Network. While living in Chicago, he volunteered at First Defense Legal Aid, providing emergency representation for recent arrestees and documenting police misconduct.
Mr. Swartz joined Outten & Golden LLP in December 2003 after representing workers as an associate at Goodman & Zuchlewski, LLP, in New York and Stowell & Friedman, Ltd., in Chicago.
He graduated from DePaul University School of Law with honors in 1998.
A member of the bars of New York and Illinois, Mr. Swartz is admitted to practice in the District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of New York, and the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Bar/Professional Activity
Mr. Swartz is active in several bar associations including the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has served on the Committee on Civil Rights (2005-2008) and the Committee on Labor and Employment Law (2002-2005). He is a member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) New York affiliate and is Co-Chair of the NELA national Wage and Hour Committee. He is an active member of the ABA Section on Labor and Employment Law, where he is a Vice Chair of the planning committee for the 4th Annual CLE Conference, was Co-Chair of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee from 2005-2008, is a Contributing Editor for the supplement to the BNA/ABA LEL Section treatise, The Fair Labor Standards Act, a Chapter Monitor for the supplement to the BNA/ABA LEL Section treatise, Employment Discrimination Law, and co-chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee 2012 conference planning committee. He also belongs to the American Constitution Society and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Speaking Engagements & Publications
Mr. Swartz speaks frequently on employment law and ethics. He has spoken and co-authored papers on prosecuting employment discrimination claims, representing sexual harassment victims, discrimination claims against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, a wide variety of wage and hour issues, workplace privacy issues, retaliatory counterclaims by employers, discrimination suits by law-firm partners, stereotyping evidence in discrimination cases, and other employment law and ethics issues.
2013
- Panelist: Settling Wage-Hour Litigation (including Rule 68 Offers after Genesis Healthcare v. Symczyk), Litigation and Settlement of FLSA Claims, NYU Labor & Employment Law, NYU 66th Annual Conference on Labor (New York)
- Panelist: "Talk to Me: Communications with Potential Class Members Before and After Complaint Filing", 7th Annual ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law Conference (New Orleans, LA)
- Panelist: "Attorney's Fees and Settlement of FLSA and Wage & Hour Actions", FLSA/Wage & Hour 2013 Litigation & Management (New York, NY)
- Panelist: "Class and Collective Action Certification and Related Discovery", Managing Wage & Hour Risks 2013, Practising Law Institute (PLI)(New York, NY)
- Speaker: "Wage & Hour Claims and Class Actions", ACI’s 18th National Forum (New York, NY)
- Speaker: "Attorney's Fees and Settlement of FLSA Actions", Bridgeport Continuing Legal Education
- Panelist: "Plaintiff’s Perspective on Wage and Hour Litigation", How to Handle a Wage and Hour Case, New York County Lawyers' Association (New York, NY)
