The Practice of Employment Law

The employment relationship, considered one of the most fundamental in modern industrial societies, spans the union-organized sectors of the economy as well as the unorganized work force. The law governing the employment relationship affects the lives of all workers, from top managerial officials to part-time clerks. Though its forms and manifestations are constantly changing, the dynamic character of this critical relationship intensified in the 1990's.

The study of employer and employee responsibilities and rights ranges from the traditional establishment of collective bargaining relationships between unions and management in the private sector and the more recent establishment of such relations in the public sector, to prohibition of employment discrimination based on race, age, sex (including sexual harassment), religion and disabilities, to regulation of employee benefits and qualified retirement plans, as well as regulation of health and safety in the workplace.

The William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law

The William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law at Saint Louis University School of Law was established to offer interested students an opportunity to specialize in the subject of the employment relationship as a unifying thread for their study of law leading to the J.D. degree and to obtain a Certificate in Employment Law recognizing their academic experience in this area. The Center also sponsors annual conferences and academic lectures and promotes scholarship and publications in the employment law field.

The Center draws upon the full resources of Saint Louis University as well as the School of Law in staffing its academic programs. The School of Law is generally recognized for its friendly and supportive atmosphere, and a full-time Center faculty rich in academic and practical experience is available on a daily basis to administer to the needs of the students. In addition, the St. Louis Bar with its nationally recognized wealth of talent in the area of labor-management and employment relationships provides part-time and counseling assistance from practitioners active in the field.

The St. Louis metropolitan area affords an ideal location for the operations of the Center, encompassing both an impressive number of large corporate employers and a range of medium and small businesses. Virtually the entire spectrum of legal issues involving employment is reflected in the city and surrounding suburbs.

Each year the Center and the student-sponsored Employment Law Association offer a variety of extra-curricular programs for students which enrich the academic experience. These programs address current employment law issues including, for example, the impact of Congressional budget decisions on the National Labor Relations Board, sexual harassment, sports law, and workers' compensation.

Additional programs feature local attorneys discussing the practice of labor and employment law. The Center and the Employment Law Association also hold a number of social gatherings. All of these activities afford students a variety of perspectives on employment law as well as the opportunity to meet each other and to "network" with practitioners.

The Certificate in Employment Law

The first-year student confronts a bewildering array of apparently disconnected courses. A persistent complaint of a beginning law student is the lack of cohesion to the studies. While much of the confusion and trauma are inevitable in any attempt to master a new area of knowledge, the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law offers a point of orientation for a student to help him or her plot an approach to the study of the law.

To achieve the Certificate in Employment Law, a student is required to complete eleven hours of course work in the employment field as part of the curriculum of study leading to the Juris Doctor degree and to submit a paper of publishable quality on a topic related to Employment Law. After the first year of study, each student chooses from a broad range of courses in the employment area, including not only traditional labor-management subjects in both the private and public sectors, but also judicial and legislative regulations on discrimination, pensions, deferred compensation, worker safety, and employment-at-will.

The School of Law offers an extensive labor and employment law curriculum. Employment law has been one of the most significant sectors of growth in the field of alternative dispute resolution and an important component of the Center program emphasizes the arbitration, mediation, and negotiation processes. In addition to regularly scheduled courses, the School of Law has recently offered two mini-courses taught by nationally-recognized employment law scholars. In the spring of 1996, Distinguished Visiting Professor David E. Feller taught a course entitled "Arbitration of Statutory Claims." Professor Feller is professor emeritus at the University of California Law School at Berkeley, and is a member and past president of the National Academy of Arbitrators. Professor Feller has written briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in a number of seminal cases involving labor arbitration including the Steelworkers Trilogy cases and the United Paperworkers International v. Misco case.

In the fall of 1996, Distinguished Visiting Professor Julius G. Getman taught a mini-course entitled "Collective Bargaining and the Right to Strike." Professor Getman holds the Earl E. Sheffield Regents Chair at The University of Texas School of Law, where he has been a professor of law since 1986. He previously was the William K. Townsend Professor of Law at Yale (1978-86) and was Professor of Law at Stanford University (1975-77). He is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and his extensive writing in the labor and employment law area includes numerous books and articles.

By pursuing an area of academic emphasis in Employment Law, students acquire a special competence in that field by the time of graduation. However, great care is taken to assure that members of the Center also cover the full spectrum of traditional legal training to prepare them for practice in other fields as well. While possessing particular skills in Employment Law which are attractive to potential employers, the graduate is nevertheless free to embrace other career opportunities if he or she chooses.