Gregg D. Adler, Employment Attorney in Hartford, Connecticut

Gregg D. Adler, a partner in the firm since 1985, received his B.A. from Brown University in 1979, and his J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 1982. Before joining the firm in 1983, Gregg was a Field Attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in Hartford, Connecticut. He is admitted to practice in the Connecticut state and federal courts, as well as the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.

Gregg has extensive experience representing individuals in all phases of employment litigation, administrative proceedings and arbitration. Gregg provides counseling and advice to employees at all levels of both large and small companies, as well as public officials, concerning legal issues involving their employment, including contractual rights and obligations, and he regularly assists in the negotiation of employment contracts and separation agreements for executives and managers. In addition to his extensive trial work, Gregg also has a substantial appellate practice and has served as lead counsel in a number of cases in which significant legal principles have been established in the areas of employment law and labor law.

Gregg often serves as a mediator to assist other lawyers resolve difficult employment law disputes. He has served as a mediator in the Federal District Court's Settlement Special Master Program since 2005, and conducts private mediations on a regular basis. Gregg uses a very simple and straightforward process for his private mediations. He requires relatively brief and direct submissions, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the cases and providing details of critical factual and legal disputes that will have to be resolved at trial or earlier. Gregg believes that most civil lawsuits, like many other things in our lives, are ultimately about people and their capacity (or lack thereof) to communicate effectively and honestly with one another. The mediation process is a unique opportunity to address those issues directly along with the technical legal aspects of the case.

Gregg is particularly proud of the work he has done in support of the rights of lesbian and gay workers, including having brought the first complaint under Connecticut’s sexual preference discrimination statute on behalf of a gay legal secretary. He also describes one of his proudest cases as his saddest, in which he successfully pursued an HIV/AIDS discrimination case to the Connecticut Supreme Court even though the plaintiff had died before the trial could be completed. In the labor relations area, Gregg’s most satisfying accomplishment has been winning two separate permanent injunctions - one in 2000 and another in 2010 - stopping a large corporation from closing factories any moving hundreds of manufacturing jobs out of Connecticut. One of his most hard fought victories in the public employee administrative law arena came in 2006 when Gregg won reinstatement and back pay for the former head of the State Ethics Commission who had been an outspoken critic of former Governor John Rowland.

Gregg has been recognized for more than 10 years in the Woodward and White publication, The Best Lawyers in America, and is regularly listed by Connecticut Magazine, New York Magazine and Connecticut Super Lawyers as one of “Connecticut’s Top 50 Lawyers,” and "Top 100 Lawyers in New England." In addition, Gregg was recognized as one of a "Dozen who Made a Difference" by the Connecticut Law Tribune in 2010, and also was named by Best Lawyers as the top Hartford Labor & Employment Lawyer of the year for 2011