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We are pleased to announce that five of our attorneys have been selected to the 2015 Massachusetts Super Lawyers List. We would also like to congratulate two of our attorneys for being selected to the 2015 Massachusetts Rising Stars list.

Super Lawyers rates outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations, and peer evaluations. Only up to 5 percent of the lawyers in a state are named to the Super Lawyers list, and no more than 2.5 percent are named to the Rising Stars list.

Please join us in congratulating the following attorneys who have been selected as “Super Lawyers” and “Rising Stars” this year.

Inga Bernstein and Rachel Stroup, along with attorneys representing co-defendants in a multi-defendant criminal case in federal court, successfully challenged the U.S. government’s motion for a protective order which, if granted, would have placed significant limits on our client’s access to discovery in his case.

Ruth O’Meara-Costello successfully helped her client defeat sexual assault charges in school disciplinary proceedings. Her client was a male college student who faced the possibility of expulsion and a tarnished academic profile. He was ultimately found not responsible for all charges presented to the disciplinary board and will not be sanctioned or have any disciplinary record related to the charges.

Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP is proud to announce that Inga S. Bernstein has been selected as Best Lawyers’ 2015 Boston Employment Law – Individuals “Lawyer of the Year.” Only a single lawyer in each practice area in each community is being honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.” Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, rates attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. In addition to this year’s recognition, Ms. Bernstein has been listed in Best Lawyers in America every year since 2007 for both criminal defense and employment law. ZDB Attorneys Norman Zalkind and David Duncan are also listed in Best Lawyers. Ms. Bernstein, a 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School, has been with the firm since 1995 and has been a partner since 2001. She concentrates her practice in the areas of criminal defense, plaintiff-side employment law, and civil litigation.

Ruth O’Meara-Costello represented a client in an unemployment case who was originally denied benefits upon leaving her position. The Department of Unemployment Assistance denied her these benefits on grounds that she was not available for work and on the grounds that she voluntarily quit. Ruth advocated for her client’s eligibility for benefits in two separate hearings appealing the denial and successfully reversed the original decision, winning both hearings and getting her client her deserved benefits.

In an editorial published this week in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Ruth O’Meara-Costello writes about how colleges and universities should handle allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault under Title IX. In the article, available here, Ruth argues that schools are not obligated to—and should not—open Title IX investigations into complaints that do not describe a violation of the law or of the schools’ own policies.

Monica Shah helped her client, a male undergraduate student, prevail against charges of sexual harassment and related disciplinary violations brought by his university under Title IX and the university’s student disciplinary code of conduct. She also helped her client successfully defend his acquittal against the complainant’s appeal.

Journalist Emily Yoffe has published an article in Slate concerning the documentary film The Hunting Ground, which is about the issue of sexual assault on campus.  The film features a case in which Norman Zalkind represented the accused student in a criminal case stemming from a charged campus assault.  Ms. Yoffe concludes that the filmmakers did an injustice to our client, who was acquitted of felony charges at trial, by blurring the truth and failing to tell both sides of the story. The story is here.

For more information on ZDB’s practice representing students facing campus disciplinary charges, click here. For more information on our representation of defendants charged with criminal sex offenses, click here.

On May 15, 2015, the National Lawyers Guild – Massachusetts Chapter celebrated its 45th anniversary since its rebirth in late 1969 and the beginning of 1970. As a part of this celebration, the founders of the renewed Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild were honored at the annual NLG Testimonial Dinner.  ZDB’s founding partner, Norman Zalkind, and of counsel, Harvey Silverglate, were among those founders celebrated at this dinner as they played a vital role in re-establishing the Massachusetts Chapter after disbandment in 1953 due to McCarthyism. During a time of widespread activism, the new Guild represented clientele ranging from the Black Panther Party to anti-war demonstrators to women’s rights activists. Thanks to the support and involvement of attorneys Zalkind and Silverglate in these representations, the NLG Massachusetts Chapter became a crucial part of holding the activist legal community together and has continued to impact social legal change to this day.

Naomi Shatz writes an article for Huffington Post about parental leave in a different context than we usually see in our employment practice.”Why Don’t We Have Family Leave Policies for High School Students?” discusses the implications of insufficient legal protections for teen parents, and steps some lawmakers are taking to help them maintain educational opportunities.