Worker & Employee Focused

profile

Thomas Meiklejohn

  • Partner

Practice Areas:

  • Labor
  • Employment
Thomas Meiklejohn
Rated by Super Lawyers


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Thomas Meiklejohn
Rated by Super Lawyers


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Biography

Tom has represented individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, including corporate officers, professional employees and government officials as well as drivers, factory workers and mechanics. He advises employees with ongoing employment disputes and negotiates severance agreements.  He has litigated cases involving age, race, national origin, sex discrimination, the Americans With Disabilities Act, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, whistleblower protection, First Amendment rights and other civil rights issues, and employment contract issues. He has won six figure jury verdicts and settlements in employment and retaliatory discharge cases.

Tom has extensive experience representing and advising unions with respect to administrative proceedings, arbitrations, contract negotiations and administration, and court litigation.  In recent years, he has worked with unions in a variety of settings in organizing campaigns.  Over the past 20 years, his clients have successfully organized more than ten thousand workers into the labor movement.

Early in his career, Tom handled difficult and extensive litigation arising out of plant sales and closings, including an NLRB case against Allied Signal that generated more than $18 million for employees who lost their jobs due to a plant closing.  Twenty years later, the Company, now Honeywell, attempted to renege on a promise made to provide lifetime medical benefits for employees who retired while the plant was open.  Thanks to the strong language negotiated by the UAW back when the plant was still open and litigation support from the Union, we worked with pension litigation specialist Bill Wertheimer to win a court order guaranteeing lifetime medical benefits for retirees and their spouses, as well as an additional $100,000 is compensation for retirees whose benefits had been briefly withheld. 

Education

  • University of Pennsylvania Law School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    • J.D. - 1977
    • Honors: magna cum laude
  • Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
    • B.A., Bachelor of Arts - 1973
    • Honors: cum laude
    • Major: Psychology

Bar Admission

  • Connecticut, 1981
  • U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit, 1991
  • U.S. District Court District of Connecticut, 1991
  • District of Columbia Court of Appeals
  • U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit
  • United States Supreme Court

Past Positions

  • National Labor Relations Board, Supervising Attorney, 1988 to 1989
  • National Labor Relations Board, Field Attorney
  • Adjunct Professor, Labor Law, Western New England Law School, 1989 to 1990

Honors

  • Super Lawyer, 2007-2020
  • Hartford Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers, Employment Law - 2017

Representative Clients

  • United Auto Workers
  • United Steelworkers of America
  • American Federation of Musicians Local 400 Graduate Workers of Columbia University