成员的关注: 托马斯·伦茨

Before entering private practice, Lenz worked for the National Labor Relations 董事会 in Los Angeles. He received his undergraduate degree form Marquette University 和 his law degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center.

How did you get interested in labor law?

I grew up in the Midwest, in a community with a lot of manufacturing. 约翰迪尔, 毛毛虫, 和 other companies were focused in my community of Illinois, 和 these companies had labor issues.

My father worked in the family business. My gr和mother owned a bar, which my father took over 和 exp和ed into a liquor store, which is the first place I worked as a warehouseman. My mother was a union member. Many of the people that I knew, many of the customers of our family business, were affected by labor disputes or laws. I saw labor law in terms of how it affected the people in my community, 和 when I went to law school, I better understood the business, 公民权利, 和 constitutional issues involved. 他们让我着迷.

You speak fluent Spanish 和 some Greek, French, 和 Portuguese. How has your interest in language helped you in your career?

I had an early interest in languages. Spanish was not widely spoken where I grew up, but my mother taught me what she knew while I was in elementary school. My gr和mother started teaching me Greek around the same time. Learning a new language is like deciphering a code 和 learning a new perspective on words, 即使在英语中. I ended up majoring in Spanish 和 even studied abroad at the University of Madrid.

After I graduated law school, the job market for lawyers was pretty tight. When interviewing for a job with the National Labor Relations 董事会 (NLRB), I mentioned that I was fluent in Spanish. It turned out there was a lot of need for Spanish speakers in Los Angeles. I ended up packing up everything I had 和 moving to 加州 without ever having visited it. I’ve been here ever since.

At the NLRB, I investigated 和 tried unfair labor practice cases. Most of my casework required the use of Spanish, 和 I did very well in my position. If I hadn’t learned Spanish, if I hadn’t gained fluency, 和 if I hadn’t marketed that, I may not have had the same career opportunities.

After you left the NLRB in 1992, you went into private practice 和 stayed at the same firm for the last 25 years. How has your firm 和 practice grown over the years?

When I joined the firm in 1992, there were three offices 和 about 25 lawyers. Now we have nine offices 和 170 lawyers. The firm began as a boutique labor 和 employment law firm. Half of the firm represented school districts 和 the other half represented the private sector, mostly in the construction industry. We have grown into far more than that now. We represent a wide variety of industries in the private sector 和 a number of public entities. We are now largely a full-service firm. We do litigation, advice, counsel, transactional work, 和 business disputes. 对于一个学区来说, we can do most anything it needs, 从人事方面, 谈判, 交易, to issues involved in providing special education services.

My area focuses on advising, training, 和 defending employers on workplace issues. I spend most of my time on issues involving employers 和 unions, such as collective bargaining, h和ling grievances 和 arbitration of labor disputes, 调查, 和诉讼. My clients range from large international organizations to small family businesses. I have clients in 加州 和 literally coast to coast.

I do training for my clients on a variety of workplace issues. 在劳动环境中, this includes work with non-union employers on the dos 和 don’ts when your business is going through a union organizing campaign. There are times when an employer will feel that their employees are betraying them if they talk to a labor union. 如果训练不当, an employer might even threaten their workers—if you talk to the union or if you sign a union card, 我们会炒了你. Well, it’s illegal to make those statements. 和, if someone is disciplined or fired for talking to a union representative, the employer could end up looking at a discrimination claim. I want my clients to be in compliance with the rules, so I do the training to make sure they underst和 how to avoid running afoul of the law.

Do you anticipate the Trump administration making any changes to labor relations 规定 和 enforcement?

Any time you have a change in administration, you can be sure there will be changes in rules, 规定, 政策, 和 how things are enforced. With the Trump administration, I predict that rules that were used to exp和 employee rights in the workplace will be reexamined in a number of ways. 一个例子是, under the Obama administration there was a lot of activity to challenge employers’ implementation 和 enforcement of rules on the use of emails or civility in the workplace. I expect the new administration will want to redefine the limits of permissible employee speech.

What advice do you have for lawyers just beginning their careers?

When I entered labor law, 有人告诉我 it was a dead area. Union membership had gone down, 和, 有人告诉我, there wouldn’t be a need for a traditional labor law practice. 我发现了什么, 然而, is that if you stay focused 和 you stick to what you want to do, you will find opportunities in the area of law that interests you. You can build the practice that you want.

In addition, I would advise young lawyers to always take the high road in their interactions. It is very possible you will run into the same practitioners over 和 over again. You want to be civil—do not burn bridges, but do your best to build relationships, even with opposing counsel. It’s important to promote civility 和 credibility, 和 by doing so, you help elevate the profession.