Throughout his legal career, Mr. Heisler has had notable success in employment and civil rights class actions and complex multi-party and multi-state litigation, producing more than $500 million in benefits to class members.
Even among the nation’s top tier class action and plaintiffs law firms, Sanford Heisler Sharp stands out in its record of success. Led by David Sanford and Jeremy Heisler, this Firm has proven again and again it has the necessary talent, experience, intelligence, creativity, and resources to represent workers and whistleblowers successfully against even the country’s largest employers. Lorene Schaefer, Esq., President of WinWinResolve.com and Former GC of GE Transportation
Jeremy Heisler is Vice-Chairman and a Founding Partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, a national law firm with offices in the District of Columbia, New York, California, Tennessee, and Maryland. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and his B.A. from Brooklyn College.
Throughout a legal career of more than 38 years, he has achieved success in employment and civil rights class actions and complex multi-party and multi-state litigation, producing more than $500 million in benefits to class members. Jeremy has established leading employment law precedents, including the expansion of the rights of wrongfully discharged employees. He has prevailed in novel and groundbreaking litigation against some of the largest corporations in the nation.
One of his most prominent litigation victories came in In Re Novartis Wage and Hour Litigation when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that sales representatives employed by pharmaceutical giant Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation were entitled to overtime pay under federal, New York and California law. Because of that victory, Novartis and the plaintiffs reached a $99 million class-wide settlement, the largest wage and hour settlement in 2012.
Jeremy was also instrumental in spearheading the $28 million settlement in a suit charging that three AT&T subsidiaries wrongfully denied overtime pay to a class of First-Level Managers. Additionally, he won class certification for a group of female sales representatives who alleged that their employer engaged in gender discrimination in Velez v. Novartis. A jury ultimately returned a $250 million verdict against the company – the largest gender discrimination award in United States history.
Jeremy was also part of the Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP team that litigated on behalf of a class of women victimized by the voyeur Rabbi Bernard Freundel. The situation arose from Freundel’s secret videotaping of undressed females without their consent during the course of a Jewish religious ceremony. On September 7, 2018, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia granted preliminary approval of the $14.25 million settlement of the class action suit.
In 2015, Jeremy also co-authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of women’s rights organizations and individuals in Mach Mining v. Equal Opportunity Commission, a major decision on whether and how federal courts should review the EEOC’s methods of informal dispute resolution in discrimination cases. Jeremy’s successes have been as consistent as they are varied. He has prosecuted a wide range of significant class actions, including a case against G.E. Capital with a $19.2 million settlement (consumers were overcharged with illegal fees), and a case against a major leasing company with a $15 million settlement (consumers were defrauded).
Prior to founding the firm, Jeremy served as law clerk for a major appellate court in New York, where he drafted bench memoranda and judicial opinions on appeals ranging from constitutional law actions and criminal prosecutions to multi-million dollar real estate litigation.
Education
- J.D., Brooklyn Law School, magna cum laude, 1979
- Editor, Brooklyn Law Review
- B.A., Brooklyn College, cum laude 1975
Clerkship
- Law Clerk, Appellate Term, First Department 1980-1981
Bar Admissions
- New York 1980
Court Admissions
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York 1980
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York 1980
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 1984
Robert De Niro Lawsuit
The lawsuit alleges that De Niro and Canal Productions subjected their longtime employee, Graham Chase Robinson, to a hostile work environment, including unwelcome physical contact, sexually-charged comments, verbal abuse, and sex-stereotyping.
Starion Energy Consumer Fraud Class Action
Sanford Heisler Sharp filed a $50 million nationwide class action complaint alleging that Connecticut-based Starion Energy perpetrates an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that has deceived and defrauded thousands of energy consumers out of millions of dollars. The suit is filed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
MetLife Overtime Pay Violation Class Action
The lawsuit seeks unpaid overtime wages for Claim Specialists who worked on long term disability insurance claims (“LTD Claim Specialists”) for MetLife and two of its subsidiaries, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and MetLife Insurance Company USA.
Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
The complaint asserts that Ogletree uses a number of tactics to shortchange female shareholders in pay and promotions. The firm manipulates allocation of origination credits by unfairly attributing such credits to male shareholders, even when women at the firm are the ones who bring in the client.
Rabbi Freundel Voyeurism Class Action
Early in 2015, Freundel plead guilty in a criminal proceeding before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, to numerous counts of illicitly filming women as they used the “mikvah”- a Jewish ritual bath frequently used by married Orthodox women as well as by women undergoing conversion to Judaism.
In re Gateway Plaza Residents Litigation
The class action suit is brought by Maureen Koetz, a resident of the neighborhood’s Gateway Plaza, a development with more than 1,700 rental units in the heart of lower Manhattan. Ms. Koetz, a former vice-president of the Gateway Tenants’ Association, describes how temperatures inside the complex regularly dropped to below 55 degrees this winter as well as past winters.
Energy Plus Consumer Fraud Class Action – $11 Million Settlement
Sanford Heisler Sharp filed a class action complaint in U.S. District Court in New Jersey against Energy Plus Holdings LLC and Energy Plus Natural Gas LP (Energy Plus) for perpetrating an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that has deceived and defrauded thousands of New Jersey consumers of millions of dollars.
Columbia University Title IX Lawsuit
The Complaint, brought under the federal Title IX law as well as the New York City Human Rights Law, alleges that Columbia University and Professor Harris have consistently and systematically violated the rights of the now 29-year-old Plaintiff Jane Doe, with Professor Harris, now age 79, subjecting her to sexual harassment and other sexual exploitation and Columbia University ignoring her complaints.
Norton Rose Fulbright/Chadbourne & Parke LLP Gender Discrimination Class Action – $3.1 Million Settlement
According to Plaintiff Kerrie Campbell, a nationally recognized trial lawyer and partner in Chadbourne’s Washington, DC office, female partners at the firm are excluded from positions of decision-making authority and receive less pay and bonuses even when they out-perform their male counterparts. There is only a one-tier partnership, with every partner characterized as an equity partner.
Sanofi-Aventis Gender Discrimination Class Action – $24 Million Settlement
Sanford Heisler Sharp represented a class of approximately 6,000 female sales employees in pay and promotion and gender discrimination claims against the pharmaceutical corporation, Sanofi Aventis U.S. The settlement produced more than $15 million in monetary benefits plus the $13.4 million reverberating effect of a $2 million pay equity adjustment over a five-year period.
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- Why The Defense Bar Celebrates Kennedy
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- High Court To Mull Class Arbitration In Data Breach Suit
- Forest Laboratories Agrees to $4M Gender Discrimination Settlement
- Sanford Heisler Sharp Files Title IX Lawsuit Against Columbia University and Noted History Professor, William V. Harris
- MetLife Hit With $50M Class Action Alleging Unpaid Overtime
- Attys React To High Court’s Constructive Discharge Ruling
- 2020 Benchmark Litigation Labor & Employment Star - Northeast in the practice area of Labor & Employment
- 2020 New York Metro Super Lawyer
- 2019 Benchmark Litigation Labor & Employment Star - Northeast in the practice area of Labor & Employment
- 2018 Benchmark Litigation Labor & Employment Star - Northeast in the practice area of Labor & Employment
- 2019-20 Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Employment Lawyer
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