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Four Experienced Department of Labor Solicitors Announce Retirement
We won’t see their like again…
May 8, 2018
Although the sad news has been known to many of us for a while, Bloomberg Law officially announced the retirements of four very senior Department of Labor Solicitors (attorneys) who will, between them, leave the agency with probably well over 100 years of valuable experience. The four are Jeff Nesvet, the department’s top counselor for employment and training; Ann Rosenthal, who heads occupational safety and health; Michael Felsen, New England regional solicitor; and Robert Shapiro, who technically retired several months ago as the top counselor for ethics and administrative law. ... I never worked with Nesvet, but had the pleasure for many years of working with Ann, Mike and Bob. A few short words for each.
I worked with Ann for many years, both stints as OSHA, when she was Deputy and head OSHA counsel. I will undoubtedly have more to say at her retirement party, but she has always been a fierce and intelligent advocate for workers. And far from being all brakes and no engine that some have associated with DOL solicitors, Ann has always been anxious to figure out the best legal methods of ensuring that OSHA can use all the legal tools at its disposal in new ways and old to ensure that workers actually have the right to a safe workplace. Plus she’s a fun, interesting woman who runs marathons.
Aside from ensuring that labor law was strictly enforced (which is what we all want in this law and order country, right?), Mike was always out front pushing OSHA to reach more corporate-wide settlements with large employers to leverage OSHA’s tiny resources nationwide. I was always impressed by his total dedication and good humor.
And Bob was our ethics guy. You remember ethics, right? Not only are ethics incredibly important to maintain the public trust (you remember trust, right?), but they’re complicated — who you’re allowed to meet with, what events you’re allowed to go to, what gifts you’re allowed to accept, who you’re allowed to eat with, and who pays. (And who you’re allowed to rent apartments from, although that never came up when we were there.) And we were not only warned about actions that were illegal, but also those that had the appearance of unsavory activity. Bob and his crew did numerous trainings and also give us their business cards with strict instructions to call any time, day or night, if we were confused. And I took advantage of that more than a few times on the road and wondering whether I was allowed to attend an event, or eat the food without paying. ... There are several current high-level government appointees I can think of who would be in much less doo doo if they had listened to people like Bob Shapiro. ... They will be gravely missed. More than the current occupants of the front offices of DOL can imagine.
May 8, 2018
Although the sad news has been known to many of us for a while, Bloomberg Law officially announced the retirements of four very senior Department of Labor Solicitors (attorneys) who will, between them, leave the agency with probably well over 100 years of valuable experience. The four are Jeff Nesvet, the department’s top counselor for employment and training; Ann Rosenthal, who heads occupational safety and health; Michael Felsen, New England regional solicitor; and Robert Shapiro, who technically retired several months ago as the top counselor for ethics and administrative law. ... I never worked with Nesvet, but had the pleasure for many years of working with Ann, Mike and Bob. A few short words for each.
I worked with Ann for many years, both stints as OSHA, when she was Deputy and head OSHA counsel. I will undoubtedly have more to say at her retirement party, but she has always been a fierce and intelligent advocate for workers. And far from being all brakes and no engine that some have associated with DOL solicitors, Ann has always been anxious to figure out the best legal methods of ensuring that OSHA can use all the legal tools at its disposal in new ways and old to ensure that workers actually have the right to a safe workplace. Plus she’s a fun, interesting woman who runs marathons.
Aside from ensuring that labor law was strictly enforced (which is what we all want in this law and order country, right?), Mike was always out front pushing OSHA to reach more corporate-wide settlements with large employers to leverage OSHA’s tiny resources nationwide. I was always impressed by his total dedication and good humor.
And Bob was our ethics guy. You remember ethics, right? Not only are ethics incredibly important to maintain the public trust (you remember trust, right?), but they’re complicated — who you’re allowed to meet with, what events you’re allowed to go to, what gifts you’re allowed to accept, who you’re allowed to eat with, and who pays. (And who you’re allowed to rent apartments from, although that never came up when we were there.) And we were not only warned about actions that were illegal, but also those that had the appearance of unsavory activity. Bob and his crew did numerous trainings and also give us their business cards with strict instructions to call any time, day or night, if we were confused. And I took advantage of that more than a few times on the road and wondering whether I was allowed to attend an event, or eat the food without paying. ... There are several current high-level government appointees I can think of who would be in much less doo doo if they had listened to people like Bob Shapiro. ... They will be gravely missed. More than the current occupants of the front offices of DOL can imagine.
News
Punching In: DOL Solicitors Punching Out?
Posted May 7, 2018, 6:00 AM
Monday morning musings for workplace watchers
DOL Looks to Lawyer Up | Latest on Labor Board Reorg| Data Protection: Just Say No?
Ben Penn: After four months of relative silence, the Labor Department’s top attorney telegraphed her intentions to the business community at a closed-door U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday. ... Sources in the room tell me that Solicitor Kate O’Scannlain’s prepared remarks offered scant detail on the agency’s plans to revise Obama-era policies. But in response to attendee grousing during the Q&A, Kate went off script to slip a few specifics about a new field memo in the hopper. ... Check out my full report on the meeting here.
Business representatives who gathered to hear O’Scannlain speak certainly welcomed the news, but the solicitor’s bandwidth to whip the field into shape with comprehensive new legal interpretations from the national office is about to take a significant hit. Four of the agency’s most senior and trusted legal advisers are retiring from the department, essentially all at once.
....
These people work in the shadows, so they’re hardly household names. But the departing attorneys represent multiple decades of institutional knowledge that agency heads rely on to implement rules, advance unresolved investigations in the courts, or craft new enforcement policies.
So what will Labor Secretary Alex Acosta and O’Scannlain do to replace them? I’ll be reporting on that later this week. ... Conservatives may be eyeing this as an opportunity for the legalistic Acosta to install Federalist Society members in senior solicitor’s office spots, but the secretary may be skittish. Back when Acosta ran the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the mid-2000s, he was lightly involved in a DOJ politicized-hiring fiasco.
Punching In: DOL Solicitors Punching Out?
Posted May 7, 2018, 6:00 AM
Monday morning musings for workplace watchers
DOL Looks to Lawyer Up | Latest on Labor Board Reorg| Data Protection: Just Say No?
Ben Penn: After four months of relative silence, the Labor Department’s top attorney telegraphed her intentions to the business community at a closed-door U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday. ... Sources in the room tell me that Solicitor Kate O’Scannlain’s prepared remarks offered scant detail on the agency’s plans to revise Obama-era policies. But in response to attendee grousing during the Q&A, Kate went off script to slip a few specifics about a new field memo in the hopper. ... Check out my full report on the meeting here.
Business representatives who gathered to hear O’Scannlain speak certainly welcomed the news, but the solicitor’s bandwidth to whip the field into shape with comprehensive new legal interpretations from the national office is about to take a significant hit. Four of the agency’s most senior and trusted legal advisers are retiring from the department, essentially all at once.
....
These people work in the shadows, so they’re hardly household names. But the departing attorneys represent multiple decades of institutional knowledge that agency heads rely on to implement rules, advance unresolved investigations in the courts, or craft new enforcement policies.
So what will Labor Secretary Alex Acosta and O’Scannlain do to replace them? I’ll be reporting on that later this week. ... Conservatives may be eyeing this as an opportunity for the legalistic Acosta to install Federalist Society members in senior solicitor’s office spots, but the secretary may be skittish. Back when Acosta ran the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the mid-2000s, he was lightly involved in a DOJ politicized-hiring fiasco.
WASHINGTON
Criticism of Ex-Official in Hiring at Justice Dept.
By ERIC LICHTBLAUJAN. 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — A former senior official at the Justice Department routinely hired Republicans, Federalist Society members and “R.T.A.’s” — “Right-Thinking Americans”— for what were supposed to be nonpolitical posts and gave them plum assignments on civil rights cases, an internal department report released Tuesday found.
The former official, Bradley Schlozman, who helped lead the Civil Rights Division for about three years beginning in 2003, also gave false statements to Congress when he denied factoring politics into his hiring decisions, the report from the inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department found. But last week federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Mr. Schlozman, who left the department in 2007 amid an uproar over accusations of widespread politicization.
In the Civil Rights Division, regarded as a cornerstone of the Justice Department since the days of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the investigation found that political supervisors charged with enforcing federal bias laws had illegally discriminated against job applicants seen as too liberal. The report said Mr. Schlozman’s superiors had ignored warnings about his brash management style and his political agenda. ... A lawyer for Mr. Schlozman, William Jordan, called the report “inaccurate, incomplete, biased, unsupported by the law and contrary to the facts,” and said that “the so-called investigation was a Star Chamber-type inquiry from the start.”
The investigation grew out of the controversy in 2007 over the dismissals of at least eight United States attorneys, which led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and spurred accusations that the Bush administration had allowed political ideology to trump law enforcement decisions.
Criticism of Ex-Official in Hiring at Justice Dept.
By ERIC LICHTBLAUJAN. 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — A former senior official at the Justice Department routinely hired Republicans, Federalist Society members and “R.T.A.’s” — “Right-Thinking Americans”— for what were supposed to be nonpolitical posts and gave them plum assignments on civil rights cases, an internal department report released Tuesday found.
The former official, Bradley Schlozman, who helped lead the Civil Rights Division for about three years beginning in 2003, also gave false statements to Congress when he denied factoring politics into his hiring decisions, the report from the inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department found. But last week federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Mr. Schlozman, who left the department in 2007 amid an uproar over accusations of widespread politicization.
In the Civil Rights Division, regarded as a cornerstone of the Justice Department since the days of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the investigation found that political supervisors charged with enforcing federal bias laws had illegally discriminated against job applicants seen as too liberal. The report said Mr. Schlozman’s superiors had ignored warnings about his brash management style and his political agenda. ... A lawyer for Mr. Schlozman, William Jordan, called the report “inaccurate, incomplete, biased, unsupported by the law and contrary to the facts,” and said that “the so-called investigation was a Star Chamber-type inquiry from the start.”
The investigation grew out of the controversy in 2007 over the dismissals of at least eight United States attorneys, which led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and spurred accusations that the Bush administration had allowed political ideology to trump law enforcement decisions.
Bradley Schlozman
Preceded by Ralph F. Boyd, Jr.
Succeeded by Alexander Acosta
Bradley Joseph Schlozman (born February 6, 1971) is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. A member of the Republican Party, Schlozman was appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, replacing Todd Graves, and he assumed that office on March 23, 2006. In April 2007, Schlozman left the U.S. Attorney position to work at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.
Schlozman and his office came under review by Congressional and Senate investigators regarding the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys and alleged inappropriate politicization of the Civil Rights Division. The Department of Justice Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility alleged that Schlozman had violated the law and made false statements to Congress about his hiring decisions. While Schlozman testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that his personnel decisions were not based on party affiliation, the report cited emails and other communications in which Schlozman discussed hiring "right-thinking Americans" and ridding the Civil Rights Division of "pinkos", "commies", and attorneys perceived to be unacceptably liberal. Federal prosecutors, however, declined to file charges of criminal perjury against Schlozman, drawing criticism from Senate Democrats.
Schlozman resigned from the Department of Justice on August 17, 2007, and accepted a position with the Hinkle Law Firm in Wichita, Kansas.
Preceded by Ralph F. Boyd, Jr.
Succeeded by Alexander Acosta
Bradley Joseph Schlozman (born February 6, 1971) is an American attorney who served as acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. A member of the Republican Party, Schlozman was appointed by Gonzales as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, replacing Todd Graves, and he assumed that office on March 23, 2006. In April 2007, Schlozman left the U.S. Attorney position to work at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.
Schlozman and his office came under review by Congressional and Senate investigators regarding the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys and alleged inappropriate politicization of the Civil Rights Division. The Department of Justice Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility alleged that Schlozman had violated the law and made false statements to Congress about his hiring decisions. While Schlozman testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that his personnel decisions were not based on party affiliation, the report cited emails and other communications in which Schlozman discussed hiring "right-thinking Americans" and ridding the Civil Rights Division of "pinkos", "commies", and attorneys perceived to be unacceptably liberal. Federal prosecutors, however, declined to file charges of criminal perjury against Schlozman, drawing criticism from Senate Democrats.
Schlozman resigned from the Department of Justice on August 17, 2007, and accepted a position with the Hinkle Law Firm in Wichita, Kansas.
