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Miklave named one of nation’s top employment lawyers

By Mark Chapman

Norwalk Democratic mayoral candidate Matt Miklave 071613
Norwalk Democratic mayoral candidate Matt Miklave is an equity partner in the national law firm of Epstein Becker & Green.

NORWALK, Conn. – Norwalk Common Council member Matt Miklave (D-District A) may be locked in a tough battle for the Democratic nomination for mayor, but he has won recognition on a national scale for his work as an attorney.

For the fourth year in a row, Miklave has been recognized as one of the top 100 employment lawyers in America by Human Resources Executive magazine, according to a press release from Miklave’s campaign. The feature will be included in an upcoming edition.

The magazine’s feature, “Top 100: Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys,” is compiled from editorial research, client evaluations and peer review by Lawdragon, a Los Angeles-based media company providing online content for attorneys and clients across the United States.

“I am truly honored to have been selected by Human Resources Executive and Lawdragon for this award,” Miklave said in the release. “I have worked very hard to conduct myself in an honorable, professional and moral way. That my colleagues and clients have recognized me in this way is truly humbling.”

Miklave is an equity partner in the national law firm of Epstein Becker & Green, and works out of the firm’s New York City and Stamford offices. In 2013, Miklave was the only attorney in the 275-attorney firm to make the list, the release said. He represents employers and management in all areas of civil rights, employment relations, and traditional labor law.

Epstein Becker & Green received a 2012 Gold Standard Certificate from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum, earned a top ranking in the 2012 Human Right’s Campaign Corporate Equality Index and received numerous additional recognitions for its support for women and minority attorneys, the release stated.

2013 Most Powerful EmploymentAttorneys

Comments

20 responses to “Miklave named one of nation’s top employment lawyers”

  1. Don’t Panic

    Congratulations Mr. Miklave. We look forward to your continued professionalism and ethical sense as this primary gets underway.

  2. Molly

    congrats on keeping those “union guys” sweating matt. this should no doubt help your self funding, obstructionist campaign. this also can help add to your war chest of blog usernames, a battle that you’re unquestionably winning.

  3. KSully

    Hmmm. Integrity, honesty, professionalism, morality, intelligence, a champion of civil rights & working families, has built a business and negotiates contracts with labor and business every day. Matt, we know you’re running on a reform/change platform but electing you would be the equivalent of a lobotomy for the Norwalk Democratic Party and City Hall. Thank God. It’s about time.

  4. D(ysfunctional)TC

    Hey that reminds me to renew my subscription to “Human Resources Executive”. It must feel really good to be in an industry that actually creates nothing but paperwork and misery. It must feel even better to get to tell everyone about it and how much better you are than everyone else.

  5. NorwalkDinosaur

    Ha! First time I have ever agreed with a word that @D(ysfunctional)TC has had to say. And funny to boot.

  6. R Roberts

    I wasn’t aware that Mr. Miklave’s legal practice was focused on fighting unions. I wonder if there are other major inconsistencies between his real life and his political “character”

  7. Tom

    I wish Miklave was running the DTC and not Ms. Brown, at least then we could have someone with some management experience.

  8. NorwalkDinosaur

    Miklave is completely full of hot air. You have to suspect anyone who constantly has to tell you how much integrity they have, how honest they are, how smart they are, etc.

  9. LWitherspoon

    Officer of the Court Miklave never misses an opportunity to remind us of his alleged integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, or humility.
    .
    I know a number of lawyers who have achieved the rank of partner, as Miklave has. They do not go around preening that they are “owners” of a law firm, because it would be unseemly. Besides, EVERY lawyer who makes partner is an owner, and all large law firms have many partners. Epstein Becker Green, where Mr. Miklave is a partner, is no exception.
    .
    Speaking of unseemly, Mr. Miklave enjoys waxing eloquent about how he ultimately became “one of the owners of a $150 million law firm employing a thousand employees in eleven cities across the United States” who “had to learn how to build a business.” One who didn’t know better could easily think that Miklave founded and built this very big and successful business. Yet the firm was founded in 1973 and Miklave didn’t graduate from law school until 1984!

  10. Bill

    L Witherspoons sounds jealous of Miklace’s wealth and success, makes you wonder what Witherspoons did with her life…probably nothing but leaving comments all day

  11. LWitherspoon

    @Bill
    Attacking me won’t change the fact that Mr. Miklave puffed up his experience in a way that no self-respecting successful lawyer would. I’m sorry if you don’t like hearing these factual statements about your favored candidate, but they’re true. Have a look at http://www.egblaw.com for confirmation.
    .
    I’m not the least bit jealous of Officer of the Court Miklave’s alleged wealth and success. However, I am very jealous of the two votes he got at the DTC nominating convention, one of which was his own.

  12. Don’t Panic

    Mr. Miklave does not have to “puff up” his credentials. His career includes crafting an argument which won a unanimous verdict begore the supreme court Iin a civil rights case.

    He has been chosen by Norwalk voters multiple times to represent them on the council. He has been selected by his peers on the council as president.

    He is the only one seeking this job who will have taken a significant cut to his income by doing so.

    And unfortunately, campaign speak requires that you do point out your own good qualities repeatedly because people just don’t have the time to pay attention to everything. It may be annoying but it is a fact of life.

    Those two votes are actually a good example of his integrity. Political considerations would have required that he make a deal for them and trade away those votes. He did not do so. He will not cut backroom deals now and he will not cut backroom deals as mayor of norwalk.

  13. LWitherspoon

    @Panic
    I agree with you that Officer of the Court Miklave doesn’t need to puff up his credentials. So why does he do so on a regular basis? Why proclaim that you’re an owner of a law firm that you “built” into a $150 million business when this seriously distorts the truth? Why puff up his career in a way that no self-respecting lawyer would? He’s a partner, one of many. Making partner is accomplishment enough, but Miklave apparently wanted to cast himself as an owner/entrepreneur/tycoon which he clearly isn’t. That’s obviously puffery and it does more harm than good because it raises the question of what other claims he makes might be puffery that’s more artfully disguised.
    .
    Then there was Miklave’s statement immediately after the brawl at City Hall in which he proclaimed that he has spent his entire career “in pursuit of honesty and integrity”. An ugly incident became a platform for self-promotion. When someone constantly declares that he has honesty and integrity, does that make you more or less likely to believe him? From where I sit, integrity is more about actions than words. Had Miklave shown the courage to vote against the wishes of the DTC and the municipal employee unions so that taxpayers could enjoy $1+ million a year in savings, that would have been an example of integrity. Yet he failed to do so, proving that political self-interest took precedence over savings for taxpayers.
    .
    Those two lone votes at the DTC nominating convention are not an example of integrity. Obviously it was in Miklave’s own political self-interest to hold on to his two votes and deny one of the other candidates the victory. If he couldn’t win himself with his two votes, at least he could deny others the win too. Similarly, his call for Amanda Brown and later for the Krummels to step down – which I agreed with, by the way – had more to do with the fact that he knew they wouldn’t support him at the nominating convention. I guarantee you that had Amanda Brown been pledged to support Miklave, he would have been singing a completely different tune.

  14. M Allen

    @LWitherspoon – Miklave and Garfunkel both did the right thing as candidates by maintaining their votes. Why should either have given those away only to then work towards a primary anyway? So one of the other two could have the advantage in the primary of claiming they were the REAL nominee of the party?

    A primary is far more democratic than a backroom deal made by insiders at a convention. The entire process is laughable. And don’t tell me the members of either Town Committee are representative votes. They only represent the people in the know, not the mass of constituents. Miklave has more of a chance with the voters than with the insiders. Therefore he did the right thing.

  15. Suzanne

    L Witherspoon, While I appreciate many of your comments in other forums, this is not among them. You have consistently shown your bias against Mr. Miklave, as is your right, but it is not a fair burden to say he touts his accomplishments above others. Rather, he reports the facts of who he is and, if given to hyperbole, this is no more than the other candidates likewise engage in. He was joined, not alone, by Mr. Garfunkel in condemning the behavior of members of the DTC and I believe this was the right thing to do: violence to solve a problem in our community is not a solution and to condemn it is to support the many rules with which we teach our children in the school about not bullying nor fighting to solve problems. The link you include in your previous statement, egblaw.com, states “This is a site under construction” and, furthermore, does not seem to support the bias you show in your comments about excessive “bloviating” by Mr. Miklave. From what I can tell, his press release about his award tells of a degree of accomplishment he did not take from any one else but, rather, accomplished himself. His is one of the few resumes that has any “meat” on it, given the four candidates for Mayor in the Democratic Party. I think M. Allen’s statement is very well taken and speaks to the idea I hold as well: “insiders” should not be deciding who the candidate for mayor is on behalf of the Democratic Party, especially these who do not know how to solve issues without violence nor take responsibility when that occurs. Rather, the constituency, as is our right, should be the ones to decide and not “insider trading” on the DTC floor between candidates and their representatives.

  16. LWitherspoon

    @M Allen
    I completely agree with you. Miklave did the right thing… for Miklave. Don’t Panic claimed above that Miklave keeping his votes rather than cutting a deal with another candidate showed integrity on Miklave’s part. That’s absurd, especially since all the candidates had vowed to proceed to a primary. Miklave keeping his votes was a strategic, self-interested act which denied Rilling and Mangiacopra the victory of winning the DTC’s endorsement. I also agree with you that a primary is a more democratic way of selecting a candidate than letting the DTC’s 35 members do it.
    .
    @Suzanne
    My issues with Mr. Miklave are based entirely on his disingenuous behavior as an elected official and candidate. It’s insulting that he thinks the sort of puffery, pandering, gamesmanship, and hypocrisy that he practices constitute public service of any sort. I am absolutely certain that if Amanda Brown were squarely in the Miklave camp, there would not have been any call for her resignation. I do find it odd that he called for Amanda Brown to resign but didn’t call for the Krummels to resign until more than a week later. It would be interesting to know why. His explanation after the fact was that he couldn’t call on Bill Krummel to resign because he didn’t live in Krummel’s district. Does that make any sense whatsoever?
    .
    For what it’s worth, I did give Mr. Miklave credit for being honest about the fact that he would accept next year’s Mayoral pay hike. Mr. Mangiacopra, in contrast, was cleverly evasive.
    .
    Thank you for pointing out the typo in my prior comment. The correct web site address is http://www.ebglaw.com. I encourage you to visit it and confirm the factual statements in my earlier comment about when the firm was founded and when Miklave joined.
    .
    I understand that when running for office one has to engage in a certain amount of self-promotion. However there is a huge difference between a little hyperbole and language that misrepresents your professional accomplishments. I agree that Mr. Miklave appears to have had a successful career as a partner in a law firm. Why does he use language which seeks to inflate his status further into that of entrepreneur/tycoon? It’s dishonest, and it takes credit for accomplishments that aren’t his.

  17. KSully

    And here we go again. LWitherspoon can dish it out but cant take it in return. Anytime L’s biased, one-sided, Tea Party leaning, rants are critiqued, the defense starts with “attacking me won’t change the fact that…” It’s easy to sit back and lob bombs. Maybe “L” should run for Common Council. Let’s see how thick her skin is when it’s her votes being dissecting.

  18. Suzanne

    OK, I went to Mr. Miklave’s WEB Site and having thoroughly reviewed is resume, do not think he has anything to apologize for and, further, has every reason to be proud of a distinguished and principled career. The firm to which L. Witherspoon refers was founded in 1973 and stuck by practicing Health law for many years. When Mr. Miklave joined the firm, it grew exponentially to include a variety of practice they had not before pursued and, thus, their business grew. Mr. Miklave’s professional bio can be read here: http://www.ebglaw.com/showbio.aspx?Show=2461 I think it demonstrates a far greater breadth and depth of knowledge and management than any competing candidates for the Democratic Party and certainly with the current Mayor. That he has occasionally written or spoken in a way that offends feeling does not seem particularly relevant. Experience does.

  19. LWitherspoon

    @Suzanne
    Where does it say that when Mr. Miklave joined the firm, the firm grew exponentially as a result?

  20. Suzanne

    L. Witherspoon, you read into my comments what you wish. I did NOT say the firm grew BECAUSE of Mr. Miklave. I DID say the firm grew as a result of additional practice types being added WHEN Mr. Miklave joined. I am beginning to believe you are so biased, you cannot read. Once again, it is up to you to do your own research and find your own answers. Check the WEB Site for the firm, for Miklave, whatever, but it is time you come up with your own answers. Geez!

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