Firm Description

Founded in 1988, Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, P.C. is a Boston law firm representing employees and labor unions in all aspects of labor and employment law. We represent individuals and unions in a variety of areas, including discrimination based on age, sex, religion, race, national origin, disability, pregnancy, and sexual orientation; sexual and racial harassment; and wrongful termination. We assist clients in negotiating employment contracts and severance agreements, in pursuing union grievances, and in pursuing reasonable accommodations in the workplace for clients' disabilities. We represent federal workers and other public employees, as well as workers in the private sector. In all our work, we are committed to furthering civil rights, employee rights, and workplace justice.

The firm practices in state and federal courts and administrative agencies, such as the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission.

The firm's attorneys frequently lecture in continuing legal education programs for the bar, and address public audiences on various aspects of employment law, both through presentations at seminars and by authoring books and articles on employment issues.

The firm recently won an enormous victory for civil rights plaintiffs. In Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, P.C. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that plaintiffs' attorneys may interview most employees of corporate defendants without a company's attorney being present, overturning lower court decisions that had wrongly restricted plaintiffs' attorneys' access to witnesses of discrimination.

Other important victories for the firm include McMillan v. Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in which a federal court jury awarded almost $800,000 to a female veterinarian who had been paid substantially less than her male colleagues and subsequently was fired after complaining about the pay disparity; and Brown v. Trustees of Boston University, where a female professor was awarded tenure and over $215,000 in damages in a sex discrimination and breach of contract case.

The firm is rated "AV," the highest possible evaluation for quality and ethics, by Martindale Hubbell, a national organization which ranks attorneys. The firm has recently been recognized among the leading Boston firms in Plaintiff's Employment Law by The Chambers USA America's Leading Business Lawyers 2003-2004 Guide. According to the Guide, "Competitors have a 'professional respect' for the firm's lawyers, who are considered to offer 'passionate commitment' to their clients."

Our offices exhibit the art of Pauline Stirris. View Gallery Here.