Judiann Chartier joined Katz Friedman as a labor lawyer in 2007 to continue protecting and advancing the rights and interests of working men and women. Judi was a staff lawyer at UNITE HERE, a union formed by the merger of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, and the Hotel Employee Restaurant Employees Union. At UNITE HERE, she filed and litigated unfair labor practices at the NLRB throughout the country, presented multiple training seminars on various labor and employment topics, and provided counsel and advice to locals.

Currently licensed to practice law in the State of New Jersey, Judi took the Illinois Bar Exam in February 2008. She is licensed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, for both the general and the trial bar.

In private practice in New Jersey, Judi represented the Communications Workers of America for many years, which is the State’s largest public sector union. She represented CWA in its amicus argument to the New Jersey Supreme Court in State of NJ v. Local 195, IFPTE, wherein the court abolished the ancient “no work - no pay” doctrine which precluded an arbitrator’s award of back pay as a remedy for overtime denied. Judi obtained summary judgment on liability in Viereck v. City of Gloucester City, the State’s first-reported FMLA case. See her favorite FMLA regulations. Judi also represented members of the New Jersey Education Association, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Service Employees International Union in New Jersey, in administrative, civil service, tenure, and pension hearings, before the NLRB and PERC, in contract negotiations and arbitrations, and in state and federal court.

In addition to conducting training seminars and workshops for Union staff and members, on topics such as the FMLA, FLSA, Title VII, contract negotiations and grievance handling, Judi taught at the Union Leadership Academy at Rutgers University School of Management Labor Relations. She was also a chapter editor for the 2005 Supplement of How to Take a Case Before the NLRB.

Judi was a summer law clerk for Katz Friedman in 1991, which confirmed her decision to be a union lawyer. After graduating from the University of Richmond Law School in 1992, she went through the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute and worked as a union organizer in the midwest for ACTWU and SEIU Local 113. While in law school, she volunteered for two years at the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society’s Student Advocacy Project in Employment Law. Judi obtained her B.A. in political science from SUNY College at Plattsburgh in 1989.