Two New Partners Join Freeborn in Firm’s Labor and Employment Practice
Freeborn & Peters LLP announced that attorneys James “Jim” F. Hendricks Jr. and Michael P. MacHarg have joined the firm as partners in its Litigation Practice Group. Both attorneys focus on employment counseling and litigation.
“Freeborn has been concentrating on expanding key practice areas by welcoming top-level talent,” said Rachel Atterberry, who leads the firm’s employment practice within its Litigation Practice Group. “Employment law is one of our areas of focus, and we are thrilled to have a deep bench of experience that Jim and Michael complement so well.”
Hendricks and MacHarg most recently were partners at SmithAmundsen LLC in Chicago.
In a release, the firm said:
Hendricks represents employers in union campaigns and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charges, as well as collective bargaining, discrimination and human resource issues. His clients work within a number of industries, including automotive, construction, hospitality, manufacturing and healthcare. He assists operations and human resource executives on a variety of issues regarding the development and implementation of employment policies and procedures. He also counsels employers facing labor and employment issues that arise in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, and personnel transactions, and he advises on preventive labor and employment strategies and training. Throughout his career, Hendricks has handled more than 300 union representation campaigns across the nation. He has represented single employers and hundreds of companies in multi-employer negotiations covering thousands of employees, and filed appearances in more than 300 cases where a union election was being conducted by the NLRB. He also has successfully negotiated first contracts after certification.
Hendricks received his J.D. from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He also holds a Master of Science from Loyola University Chicago and a Bachelor of Science from Indiana University.
MacHarg assists clients in union avoidance, collective bargaining, contract administration, unfair labor practices, grievance and arbitration, wage and hour issues, and discrimination. He represents clients in various industries, including government contractors, security, commercial laundry, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, retail, automotive and healthcare. In more than 20 years of practicing law, MacHarg has successfully represented employers in dozens of union organizing campaigns. He has worked on more than 1,000 unfair labor practice investigations and has successfully tried many unfair labor practices cases, including defending employers against government efforts seeking injunctive relief in federal court. His experience involves vacating arbitration awards, complex and class action wage-hour matters, pension collection cases, and injunctions against picketing in Section 301 cases. He also litigates cases involving ERISA, the Railway Labor Act and unfair competition cases.
MacHarg earned his J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law and his Bachelor of Business Studies from Loyola University in Chicago.
