Daniel B. Edelman

Dan Edelman has represented individual employees, groups of employees and labor organizations in a wide range of employment cases involving employment discrimination, wrongful termination and employee health and pension benefits. Along with attorneys from three other firms, he developed claims of ethnic discrimination and hostile environment which ensued in an eight-figure settlement for some 150 present and former employees. In Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., 130 F.3d 1287 (8th Cir. 1997), the first-ever class sexual harassment suit, he handled appellate briefing of key psychic damage issues. See C. Bingham & L. Gansler, Class Action (2002).

Dan Edelman successfully represented the City of Detroit, its Police Department and individual officials in defense of protracted suits challenging the constitutionality of Detroit's affirmative action programs for promotions and layoffs of police officers. Detroit Police Officers Association v. Young, 920 F. Supp. 755 (E.D. Mich. 1995)(defense of constitutional challenge to affirmative-action promotions); NAACP v. Detroit Police Officers Ass'n and City of Detroit, 900 F.2d 903 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 983 (1990)(defense of constitutional challenge to lay-offs of minority police officers). He has been outside counsel in employment matters to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Dan Edelman has served as an expert witness in cases involving claims of legal malpractice and disputes over the appropriate amount of court-awarded fees. He has represented numerous parties in the prosecution and defense of fee claims.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Dan Edelman was law clerk for the Honorable Harry A. Blackmun, first at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and then at the Supreme Court of the United States. He worked with the late Joe Rauh and Chip Yablonski on the lawsuits which brought historic democratic reform to the United Mine Workers union and later served the UMW as Associate General Counsel. In 1975, he joined with Chip Yablonski and Charles Both in establishing our firm. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and the bars of several federal courts of appeals.

Dan Edelman is a member of the Board of Directors of the UDC School of Law Foundation. He is a member of the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association and the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He is a recipient of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's pro bono award.