Ellen L. Eardley joined the firm in the fall of 2007 and is active in the civil rights, corporate responsibility, wage and hour, and consumer protection aspects of the firm’s practice. Ms. Eardley litigates a variety of complex civil rights matters, including race and gender discrimination, and negotiates and drafts settlement agreements to provide both individual and programmatic relief. She is the lead associate for the Women on Wall Street Project. In addition, Ms. Eardley represents high-level executives who have faced discrimination or who are challenging corporate wrongdoing. She plays a key role in the Voices for Corporate Responsibility Project. Ms. Eardley also represents employees who have been wrongfully denied wages or overtime pay, and represents consumers in complex class actions challenging deceptive or unfair trade practices.
In October of 2008, Ms. Eardley co-authored an issue brief, "21st Century Tools for Advancing Equal Opportunity: Recommendations for the Next Administration," which encourages the federal government, including the SEC, OFCCP and EEOC, to strengthen civil rights enforcement and transparency. This issue brief was released by the American Constitution Society along with papers by several other authors, including Senator Ted Kennedy and Attorney General Janet Reno. Ms. Eardley also regularly contributes to the American Bar Association's Employment Discrimination Law treatise and serves as an advising attorney for the D.C. Employment Justice Center's Workers' Rights Clinic.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Eardley litigated employment discrimination and wage and hour cases on behalf of public sector employees and unions at Woodley & McGillivary in Washington, D.C. Among other matters, Ms. Eardley represented four female firefighters in a sexual harassment lawsuit against their employer, resulting in a jury verdict of over $750,000. Ms. Eardley also regularly represented federal employees in claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for the employer’s failure to pay overtime and off-the-clock work. She successfully argued an appeal involving FLSA overtime before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
From 2003-2005, Ms. Eardley was the Simpson Thacher and Bartlett Equal Justice Works Fellow and counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. She focused on impact litigation as well as legislative and regulatory advocacy regarding women’s rights in education and employment. She served on the team of attorneys who represented female victims of sexual assault at the University of Colorado and on the team that convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits retaliation, in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, 544 U.S. 167 (2005). At the National Women's Law Center, she also advocated on Capitol Hill for heightened enforcement of sex discrimination laws in career and technical (formerly vocational) education, and co-authored the report “Tools of the Trade: Using the Law to Address Sex Segregation in High School Career and Technical Education.”
Graduating first in her law school class at the University of Cincinnati, Ms. Eardley earned a joint J.D./M.A. in Women’s Studies. She was a member of the University of Cincinnati Law Review and Book Review Editor for the Human Rights Quarterly. During law school she participated in the U.S. Department of Justice Summer Honors Program, interning for the Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section. She also clerked for Laufman & Gerhardstein, a civil rights firm and represented victims of racial profiling and employment discrimination.
In 2009, Ms. Eardley was honored as Eastern Illinois University's Outstanding Young Alumna in recognition of her exceptional legal career. Ms. Eardley is a member of the District of Columbia, Illinois and U.S. Supreme Court bars.
