Robert Schofield is a partner in Whiteman Osterman & Hanna’s Labor and Employment Law, Education, and Litigation, Arbitration and Mediation Practice Groups. His areas of expertise include public sector labor and employment issues, education law, and general litigation, as well as State Court practice. Mr. Schofield has been with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP since 2000.

Representative Accomplishments

• Negotiation of public and private sector collective bargaining agreements.
• Representation of public, private, and corporate clients in labor, employment, and commercial lawsuits and arbitrations.
• Advise clients regarding daily employment decisions such as hiring, discipline, and termination of employees; draft employment contracts, personnel policy manuals and other employment related documents; and work with employers to ensure compliance with federal and State statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and others.
• Representation of school districts on all manner of school and employment law matters and in tax certiorari litigation.
  
• Representation of public libraries and library systems in full range of legal issues, including funding litigation, construction projects, employment matters, governance issues, and creation of new library districts.
• Representation of multiple FORTUNE 500 companies in discrimination cases and commercial disputes.
• Representation of a FORTUNE 100 manufacturing company in a nuisance action against a neighboring industry.

Affiliations

Mr. Schofield is the President-elect of the Albany County Bar Association. He is a member of the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association, and a past member of the State Bar’s Committee on Attorney Professionalism. He has served as the President of the NY Capital Chapter of the Labor and Employment Research Association, an organization of practitioners and arbitrators in the labor-management community. He is a member of the New York State School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys.

Mr. Schofield recently served as co-chair of the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Tech Valley Program. He previously co-chaired and was a member of the former Capital Leadership Program and was amember of the Capital Leadership Class of 2002. In 2007, he was named one of the Capital Region’s “40 Under Forty” by The Business Review newspaper. In 2008, Mr. Schofield was appointed to the City of Albany’s Comprehensive Plan Review Board and in 2011 to its Community Advisory Committee on Sustainability. In 2010, Mr. Schofield was awarded the New York Library Associations Outstanding Advocate of Libraries Award.

Background

Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Schofield was the law clerk to the Hon. Justices Bernard J. Malone, Jr. and Joseph Harris of the New York Supreme Court, and previously served as an Appellate Court Attorney for the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department. Mr. Schofield graduated, magna cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law, where he was an editor of the Syracuse Law Review. He holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree from Plattsburgh State University. He is admitted to practice in New York and in the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.