Sandra P. Zemm
Sandra P. Zemm was a longtime partner with Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Sandy, an equity partner in the Labor and Employment department in the Chicago office, concentrated her practice on traditional labor matters, and on matters involving employment discrimination, wage-hour, and employment litigation. She particularly enjoyed her work representing management in negotiating collective bargaining or shutdown agreements with various labor unions.
A labor law trailblazer.
A true trailblazer at Seyfarth Shaw, Sandy joined the firm in 1975 as the first female associate in the Labor and Employment (L&E) practice. In 1982, she became the Firm’s first female equity partner in L&E. In 2002, she was elected to the American College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, an appointment in which she took particular pride.
In her practice, Sandy represented both private and public sector clients with respect to labor relations, collective bargaining, and equal opportunity matters. She represented manufacturing, media, health care, and service industry clients. This representation included guidance in maintaining a union free environment, representation matters, contract negotiations and administration, arbitration proceedings, guidance in the event of strike activity, litigation matters in both state and federal courts, administrative matters before state and federal agencies, and general personnel planning.
Sandy negotiated collective bargaining agreements and/or shutdown agreements with numerous labor unions including the Teamsters, CWA, GCIU, IAM, Guild, UAW, IUOE, AFSME, SEIU, INA, and many others. She represented management in the labor context in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, shutdown situations, and a wide variety of other corporate organizational changes. She also represented management in well over two hundred hearings before arbitrators, the National Labor Relations Board, and various state labor agencies.
Additionally, Sandy had extensive experience in employment matters before the EEOC, OFCCP, DOL, and other state and federal agencies. She represented employers in both state and federal court proceedings involving all types of state and federal employment related claims.
Sandy frequently spoke to personnel and industrial relations groups and associations regarding various labor relations and employment matters and conducted training sessions and seminars for all levels of management.
“Tough as nails” with “grace and style.”
Sandy has been recognized by her partners within Seyfarth Shaw for her “humor, self-confidence and grace”; as someone who was “tough as nails and able to go head to head with adversaries,” “the first woman in the firm to focus on the rough-and-tumble arena of union-management relations,” “a model lawyer who could thrive in the trenches in her work life, and still conduct her personal life with grace and style” and as someone who “fought valiantly against her cancer without self-pity.”
A lifelong resident of Chicago, Sandy was born in the Bridgeport neighborhood, and was a long-time Lincoln Park resident. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1969, and received her J.D. from Florida State University, where she was managing editor of the school's Law Review. Her passion was traveling, having visited six continents. In addition to her brother Anthony and cousins, Sandy was survived by her companion of ten years, Michael Hindus, a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in San Francisco.
Education
J.D., Florida State University (1974)
Managing Editor of Law Review
B.S., University of Illinois (1969)
Admissions
Florida
Illinois
District of Columbia
U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Circuits
U.S. District Court for the District Court of Arizona
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Affiliations
American Bar Association (Labor and Employment Section/Committee on International Law)
Florida Bar Association
Illinois State Bar Association
Publications
Co-Author: Drafting the Public Sector Labor Agreement, International Personnel Management Association. Public Employee Relations Library.
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