Symko, Benjamin J.

JUSTIN M. SWARTZ, a partner at Outten & Golden LLP and Co-Chair of its Class Action Practice Group, represents employees in class action wage/hour and discrimination cases, as well as individual discrimination cases and other employment matters. Justin is also Co-Chair of the firm's Public Interest Committee and a member of its LGBT Employment Rights Practice Group and its Discrimination and Retaliation Practice Group.

Justin currently represents workers in overtime lawsuits against Starbucks, Wal-Mart, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Gristede's, Duane Reade, Tyson Foods, and other major companies. He also represents hundreds of restaurant workers in overtime and tip theft cases against New York City restaurants, low-wage cleaning workers in their claims that large contractors failed to pay them overtime compensation for their work cleaning buildings around Ground Zero in 2001, and entertainers and servers who have worked at Scores nightclubs. Among his recent employment discrimination matters are discrimination claims against companies that have refused to hire minorities with criminal records including an EEOC charge against Madison Square Garden, systemic gender discrimination claims against a major utility company, and several individual race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and national origin discrimination cases. He has represented hundreds of female and African American stock brokers in nationwide discrimination class action lawsuits against the country's leading brokerage firms, including two recently settled discrimination cases against Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley. He was a member of the trial teams in two class action race discrimination jury trials.

He is active in several bar associations including the New York City Bar Association where he served on the Committee on Civil Rights (2005-2008) and the Committee on Labor and Employment Law (2002-2005). He is a member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) New York chapter and is Co-Chair of the NELA national Wage and Hour Committee. In the ABA Section on Labor and Employment Law, he is Co-Chair of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee and an active member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.

Justin frequently works with non-profit organizations on public interest matters including successfully representing a formerly incarcerated security guard in a licensing hearing in conjunction with MFY Legal Services and three low wage immigrant women in sexual harassment, assault and battery, and overtime claims as co-counsel to the ACLU Women's Rights Project. He has co-counseled with, and performed pro bono services for, The Legal Aid Society, South Brooklyn Legal Services, Manhattan Legal Services, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Legal Momentum, NYLAG, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and MFY Legal Services as a volunteer attorney at its legal clinics. Justin is also part of the Lambda Legal Cooperating Attorney Network. While living in Chicago, he volunteered at First Defense Legal Aid, providing emergency representation for recent arrestees and documenting police misconduct. He belongs to the American Constitution Society and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Justin speaks frequently on employment law and ethics. He and has spoken on and co-authored papers on prosecuting employment discrimination claims, representing sexual harassment victims, discrimination claims against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people, a wide variety of wage and hour issues, workplace privacy issues, retaliatory counterclaims by employers, discrimination suits by law-firm partners, stereotyping evidence in discrimination cases, and other employment law and ethics issues.

He graduated from DePaul University School of Law with honors in 1998. He joined Outten & Golden LLP in December 2003 after representing workers as an associate at Goodman & Zuchlewski, LLP, in New York and Stowell & Friedman, Ltd., in Chicago. He is a member of the bars of New York and Illinois.