Wages and Hours: Law and Practice

Renowned as an expert on labor and employment law, Laurie Leader is a practicing attorney, clinical law professor, author, and certified mediator.

Laurie Leader joined the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law in the winter of 1999. As a clinical professor, Laurie represents companies and management, executive and professional employees in labor and employment matters and mediates employment disputes.

Prior to joining the Chicago-Kent faculty, Laurie worked in private practice concentrating in the area of labor and employment law. In 2006 and 2007, she was regional co-chair of the American Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Committee’s Trial Advocacy Competition in Chicago, and has since continued to judge these competitions. From 1995-97, she was the chair of the Gender Bias in the Courtroom Committee of the Chicago Bar Association's Alliance for Women, and from 1988-89 she was co-chair of the Chicago Bar Association's Young Lawyer Section, Labor, and Employment Law Committee.

Laurie is a life member of the National Registry of Who's Who. In 2006 and 2007, she co-hosted the Comcast Cable show entitled “The Employment Hour”. Laurie speaks regularly on a variety of employment-related topics and trains law students and lawyers on trial techniques and legal storytelling.

Laurie has authored numerous articles and book chapters and two treatises: Drafting Employment and Termination Agreements (Matthew Bender & Co.) (1993) and Wages and Hours: Law & Practice Matthew Bender & Co.) (1990). She is the revision author for Volumes 13 and 17 of Rabkin & Johnson's Current Legal Forms (Matthew Bender & Co.), respectively, entitled “Employment and Termination Agreements“ and “Stock Options and Other Incentive Agreements”. Laurie is the Editor-in-Chief of Bender's Labor & Employment Bulletin and is an executive editor for Lindemann, Grossman & Weirich, Employment Discrimination Law, co-published by Bloomberg BNA and the American Bar Association's Labor & Employment Law Committee.

As certified mediator, Laurie mediates labor and employment cases, both pre- and post-litigation, including employment discrimination, wage-hour, wrongful termination and restrictive covenant cases. She is principal of Effective Employment Mediation, LLC - Chicago, Northfield & Libertyville Offices.

Laurie earned an A.B. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and was named in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities (1972-73). She earned her J.D. degree from Cleveland State University, where she graduated with honors, served as an executive editor of the Law Review and taught a legal research and writing class to first-year students.