Is there a better way? Grievance med-arb lessons from north of the border

Randi Hammer Abramsky Related Seminars and Products

Arbitrator

Ms. Abramsky began her legal career with Vedder, Price, Kaufman and Kammholz in Chicago in 1981, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. In 1986, she became General Counsel of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board- and spoke at her first Kent Law School Public Sector Labor Conference.  In 1988, became a Board Member with the IELRB. She started her arbitration practice around that time.

In 1991, Ms. Abramsky relocated to Toronto, Ontario, and after obtaining an LL.M in Canadian labor law, started arbitrating and mediating in Ontario (as well as continuing in the U.S.). Ms. Abramsky has been a full-time mediator and arbitrator, practicing in both locales, since that time.

She is also active in the National Academy of Arbitrators, and is President of the Ontario Labour Management Arbitrators’ Association.

Margo Newman Related Seminars and Products

Arbitrator & Mediator

AFSCME Council 31

Margo was born and raised in New York City and attended the University of
Michigan, where she graduated in 1971 with a B.A. in History. She taught Junior High School social studies in New York City, and studied law at George
Washington University in Washington, D.C. where she received her J.D. in 1975.

She did a short stint with the U.S. Railway Association before joining the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago in 1976, where she worked as a trial specialist until 1981, when she went into private practice with the law firm of Asher, Gittler, Greenfield & D'Alba, representing unions and employees in all aspects of labor relations. There she remained until 1988, when she decided that having married a Canadian the prior year (after years of commuting), and being 7 months pregnant with their first of two sons, she ought to relocate her primary residence to Toronto.This she accomplished in March, 1989.

Since that time, Margo has been in the full-time practice of labor arbitration.
She began her U.S. practice in 1988, followed by her Canadian arbitration practice in 1991. Prior to the pandemic, she divided her time between her Chicago and Toronto offices. Now she works remotely, and has grudgingly (but happily) given up her frequent flier status. Margo was admitted to the National Academy of
Arbitrators in 2002, and the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers in 2014.

Jacalyn J. Zimmerman Related Seminars and Products

Arbitrator and Mediator

Jacalyn Zimmerman, Arbitrator and mediator

Jacalyn J. Zimmerman is a labor arbitrator/mediator with a private practice based in the Chicago area. A career labor relations neutral, Jackie maintained an active arbitration practice from 2006 to late 2009, when she suspended the practice to accept an appointment by then-Illinois Governor Pat Quinn as Chair of the Illinois Labor Relations Board.  She held that position until resuming the arbitration practice in September 2012.  She also served as the agency’s founding General Counsel.  She began her legal career as a trial attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, Region 13.

Jackie is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.  She is a past neutral co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on State and Local Government Bargaining and Employment Law, and a past president of the Association of Labor Relations Agencies.