Title: Member & Co-Chair, OSHA-Workplace Safety Practice

Organization Name: Cozen O'Connor

Education: 1997: J.D., St. John's University School of Law; 1992: B.A., University of Connecticut.

2016-present: Cozen O'Connor, Member & Co-Chair, OSHA-Workplace Safety Practice

2003-2016: Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC, Associate-Partner

2001-2003: Rains & Pogrebin, Associate

1998-2001: United States Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, Trial Attorney

Shortly after I started at Cozen in July of 2016, I was named the Chair of the OSHA-Workplace Safety Practice. Of course, this was several years before the COVID pandemic. As most OSHA practitioners would tell you, as a relatively small federal agency, most businesses had little or no contact with OSHA unless they were in an high hazard industry, like manufacturing or construction, or a serious injury or illness occurred in the workplace. Needless to say, COVID changed all that, and today it would be hard to find any business regardless of industry that has not heard of OSHA.

I think OSHA has made clear that it will be refocusing resources on more traditional safety and health matters as opposed to COVID, which candidly is a much welcomed pivot in terms of the kind of OSHA matters I will likely be working on moving forward. In addition, we have seen and will continue to see significantly more aggressive rulemaking from OSHA in the next two years and potentially beyond that depending on the results of the 2025 presidential election. For example, we are expecting sooner rather than later a final heat stress rule. These regulatory changes will keep OSHA practitioners busy.

Most management-side labor and employment attorneys tend to be general practitioners as it's usually difficult to stay busy full-time working exclusively in one area of the law. That said, I always encourage more junior lawyers to find a discrete area of employment law and become the go-to person in that area. You can do this by actively looking for cases in this area and speaking and writing about it. Many people think of marketing as external, but internal marketing, particularly if you work at a larger firm or company, can be a tremendous tool for distinguishing yourself when everyone at work thinks of you when they need help in a certain area of law.

The people and culture of Cozen. I know that seems to be a popular tag line particularly in interviews but it really is true at Cozen. They have done such a wonderful job of creating a supportive culture, incentivizing us to help each other, and appreciating the importance of a well maintained work-life balance. At the risk of sounding cliché, it really is a "work hard, play hard" mentality.

At the risk of not answering the specific question, I have been involved for many years now through our Pro Bono Department in an organization called "Start Small – Think Big." It pairs lawyers with small start-up companies that meet certain eligibility requirements to assist them with discrete employment issues (or whatever area of the law you practice in). Often, the owners are diverse. These clients tend to be very appreciative of your work and I very much enjoy working with small start-up businesses, usually solo proprietors, and watching them grow. Although these are discrete issue assignments, I almost inevitably maintain long-term contact with them and invite them to reach out whenever they need to speak about an employment issue.

It is not necessarily one mistake but a realization as I continued practicing law. As a younger attorney, I sometimes found myself putting off starting assignments when I believed I had plenty of time before the deadline. I used to tell myself it's better to work on something when you can dedicate a longer period of time in one setting as opposed to starting and stopping and that would justify me putting off starting the project. A more aggressive word would be procrastination and I suspect most of us do it from time to time. However, I soon realized that is a very dangerous trait in the practice of law because there's always something that comes up that you did not expect or takes longer than you expected. It is much better to start working on a matter even for a short period of time because progress is progress, and I can't tell you how many times I've been thankful for starting a project early.

I started my career as a trial attorney with the US Department of Labor where I prosecuted FLSA claims on behalf of low wage earners and safety and health violations under OSHA. When I left the Department, I would sometimes get asked how do you go from working on behalf of employees to representing large corporations, often with the not-so-subtle inference that corporations are driven by greed and don't care about employees. I can tell you after practicing as a management-side attorney for over two decades, the vast majority of employers understand and appreciate that without successful employees, there's no successful company. On this side of the proverbial aisle, I can assist clients proactively to prevent mistakes from being made and, when mistakes are identified, help guide them to a fair resolution as opposed to being reactive as a government prosecutor. In other words, both positions allowed me to practice law without needing to change the direction of my moral compass. Moral of the story—don't let anyone tell you there are good and bad sides. There are just good and bad lawyers.