Patterson Harkavy’s 2010 North Carolina “Super Lawyers” are:

• Valerie Johnson — Workers’ Compensation
• Leto Copeley — Workers’ Compensation
• Burton Craige — Personal Injury: Medical Malpractice
• Hank Patterson — Workers’ Compensation
• Michael Okun — Labor & Employment Law
• Jonathan Harkavy — Alternative Dispute Resolution

In addition, Jonathan Harkavy was named to the list of the Top 100 attorneys in North Carolina.

Law & Politics conducts a regional survey of lawyers who have been in practice for at least five years, asking them to nominate the best attorneys they’ve personally observed in action.  In addition, the magazine’s attorney-led research department reviews nominees’ credentials based on a set of evaluation criteria.  To ensure a diverse and well-balanced list, the research staff considers factors such as firm size, practice area and geographic location.

Summary: The 2008 Term of the Supreme Court of the United States, forged in volatile economic times and framed on a changing political palette, not only reaffirmed the Court’s interest in employment-related cases, but also revealed a growing institutional confidence in shaping employment law. While a fully coherent approach to employment disputes continued to elude the Court, it was not for lack of trying, as the Justices decided nearly a dozen cases treating some aspect of the employment relationship. Notably, these cases, many of which were determined by closely divided votes, mirror a deep philosophical fracture portrayed more broadly across the spectrum of the Court’s work. All in all, therefore, the 2008 Term was one of high interest for both the employment bar and the general public, as well as one of considerable consequence for workers, employers, and labor organizations.

This paper first comments briefly on the scope of the Court’s work during the 2008 Term and the place of employment law in it. Next, the major portion of the paper is devoted to the term’s decisions arranged by broad topics. The italicized paragraphs preceding and
following the cases offer my personal take on the decisions and their likely impact on employees, employers, and labor unions. Following that review of decisions is a listing of the Court’s grants of certiorari in employment-related cases to be argued and decided in the 2009
Term. The paper concludes with some personal observations about the doctrine and direction of the Court’s employment jurisprudence and the changing character of the employment relationship itself.

Summary: The 2007 Term of the Supreme Court of the United States provided fresh and persuasive evidence of the centrality of work in our lives and the significance of employment law in our jurisprudence during this first decade of the new century. Nearly one out of four civil cases on the Court’s opinion docket involved disputes concerning some aspect of employer-employee relations. How the law regulates and affects the employment relationship thus continued to find detailed, if not fully coherent, expression in the Court’s opinions during the 2007 Term. This paper first reviews the term’s decisions arranged largely by subject matter. The italicized paragraphs preceding and following the cases offer some personal commentary on the decisions and their likely impact on workers, employers, and their lawyers, and more generally on our employment laws. Following this term’s cases are brief summaries of the grants of certiorari in employment-related cases for the 2008 Term. The paper concludes with a brief observation about the structure of federal employment law in the wake of the Court’s recent decisions.