Scheinman Institute Spotlight: Jill A. Goldy

After serving as a Field Examiner for the National Labor Relations Board in New York City, Jill Goldy began her formal legal career as an employment law counselor and litigator at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago, where she litigated on behalf of employers in several federal and state court jurisdictions. She also led the Labor Relations Division of the City of Chicago’s law department during Harold Washington’s administration. She then spent the next 20 years at Motorola, Inc. where she was a corporate officer heading the global labor & employment law practice and later simultaneously serving as the company’s chief ethics and compliance officer. Since co-founding Feis Goldy LLC in 2014 she quickly established a successful plaintiff’s side employment practice, representing employees at all levels in difficult, often complex, employment situations.

Current Position: Founding Partner, Feis Goldy LLC, a boutique employment law firm in Chicago representing individual executives, managers and employees. 2021-2022 Scheinman Institute Jean T. McKelvey Neutral in Residence.

Education: B.A., Smith College; M.S. Cornell University ILR School; J.D., Columbia University Law School

Area of Expertise: Labor and employment law practice that has included: serving as a government investigator and hearing officer at the NLRB; being a management side counselor and litigator in a large Chicago law firm (Seyfarth Shaw LLP); managing a unit of a public sector in house legal department in the City of Chicago; being a practice leader, vice president and then corporate officer leading the labor and employment law function (and later additional corporate functions) in a Fortune 100 public company (Motorola, Inc.); and co-founding Feis Goldy LLC in January, 2014. Feis Goldy’s services include counseling, negotiating and litigating on behalf of individual executives, managers and employees and conducting neutral employment investigations. Admitted to practice in Illinois and New York, in the 6th, 7th and 10th Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal and in multiple federal district courts. Have also briefed cases to the U.S. Supreme Court and have been admitted to the Court for those specific cases.

Career Highlights: 

In my early practice years at a large management-side law firm, I practiced all aspects of labor & employment law and employment litigation in both private sector and public sector matters, representing employers of all sizes, including Fortune 500 companies. While working in the Harold Washington Administration for the City of Chicago, I led the Labor Relations Division in the city’s law department, which represented all city agencies and dealt with all the city's major unions regarding labor relations matters and in grievance arbitrations. 

During my 20+ year tenure at Motorola, I worked closely with the company’s senior leadership on a wide range of employment law matters (including employment discrimination, employee relations, trade secrets and restrictive covenants, compensation and benefits, immigration, mergers & acquisitions). I negotiated hundreds of employment and dispute resolution agreements, including those arising from large, worldwide merger and acquisition transactions (e.g., divestiture of Motorola’s semiconductor business, its cellular infrastructure business and the 2011 worldwide separation of Motorola, Inc. into two publicly-traded companies); directed complex internal employment law investigations and related proceedings before administrative agencies, directed the defense of employment and benefits litigation (including multiple ERISA stock drop class actions and high profile employment litigation by former executives), and directed lawsuits filed by the Company to enforce its restrictive covenant agreements with executives. In addition, I supported the Compensation and Leadership Committee of the Motorola Board of Directors regarding design and implementation of compensation and benefit plans and a range of matters concerning senior leaders. 

As Motorola’s chief ethics and compliance officer, I was responsible for the Company's Code of Conduct, worldwide ethics hotline, ethics/compliance programs and training, complex domestic and international investigations of alleged Code of Conduct and related civil and criminal law violations and related proceedings before domestic and international regulatory agencies. In this role, reported directly to the Company’s General Counsel, and dotted line to the Board of Directors’ Audit & Legal Committee, attended its quarterly meetings, and worked closely with the Company’s internal and external auditors and internal and external counsel across a broad range of legal disciplines and countries. 

These experiences were invaluable to my decision 8 years ago to become an attorney/entrepreneur and co-found Feis Goldy LLC. I now devote approximately 70% of my time to counseling and negotiating severance, new hire, international transfer, change in control, executive compensation and restrictive covenant agreements on behalf of executives and senior management. The other 30% consists of pursuing contested EEO, wage payment, employment tort, breach of contract and other pre-litigation disputes and litigation on behalf of individuals at all organizational levels, and conducting neutral investigations. Clients repeatedly say they value my understanding of corporate dynamics, pragmatism, strategic acuity, flexibility, empathy, and straight talk, at least as much as my legal skill. I have tough but respectful relationships with opposing counsel, which also tends to serve the cause of conflict resolution well.

Please discuss one of your most interesting clients, the services provided and the impact it made: 

While readers presumably would be interested in a discussion of some of my more recent cases representing individual employees, I have refrained from including them here based on various contractual and attorney ethical obligations to maintain confidences. I discuss instead some interesting challenges while serving my organizational client, Motorola, while I served as in house counsel there and as an officer of the Company. 

Over my 20 years at Motorola, the Company changed from being largely a U.S. manufacturer with very large factories throughout the U.S., to being a product, infrastructure and software development firm in multiple lines of business with both captive and outsourced offshore manufacturing locations. It operated in 60 or more countries. It underwent five CEO changes, including operating with co-CEO’s for a period of time. It sold off major international business units, bought smaller companies, and conducted reductions in force (large and small) in one or more business units frequently over my last 10+ years. It’s worldwide workforce ranged from approximately 170,000 employees at its height to approximately 50,000 employees just before it split into two separate publicly traded companies in early 2011. My employment law team and I played a major proactive and hands on role, often in close collaboration with the worldwide Human Resources team, to design, train for and guide implementation of new processes and protocols (many of which involved early assessment and triage of real and anticipated conflicts, reasonable protections for outgoing employees, strong document preservation and collection processes, strong partnering relationships with management leaders and outside counsel and an orientation toward problem solving) to anticipate and minimize the Company’s ever-changing employment law liability risks. 

These activities were often not glamorous and not all original ideas, but designing them and obtaining management buy-in in real time in a sprawling company undergoing frequent structural and leadership changes, with highly decentralized decision-making and information systems, were significant accomplishments. From a big picture perspective our preventive efforts paid off. The Company experienced no EEO or wage-hour class action litigation (both of which were rampant across U.S. business in the same period) and defeated or favorably settled the relatively small number of other domestic and international employment and benefits litigation matters we defended. We avoided most conflicts altogether with good anticipation, good design, communication and ongoing assessment.  In large divestitures, for example, we negotiated agreements to preserve the jobs and employment conditions of employees being transitioned to new companies with the sale of their business units (including carryovers of their Motorola years of service and preservation of rights to future severance if later terminated), to the maximum extent possible in each country in which they worked. This did right by affected employees, averted challenges and saved millions in potential unnecessary severance costs. 

Advice to students in the conflict resolution field: Use your time at Cornell in your classes, in your extracurricular activities, and in your social interactions, to develop good skills to identify and understand the different points of view that may inform any topic. Understanding where different stakeholders are coming from on any issue, and what they value most, is a very important start to becoming a good problem solver, negotiator and conflict resolution agent. Learning to make decisions based on good data rather than opinions or assumptions is another. You may be surprised at how many opportunities there are to practice these skills in your everyday lives, including in your academic work. If you do so with intention, you will develop a valuable skill set that will serve you well indefinitely.