Fireside Chat Program (continued) – Best Practices for Litigating Discrimination Cases under Title VII and the ADA (Presented by the Federal Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Civil Rights Law Sections & Judiciary Division)

David A. Michel is a litigation partner at Sherin and Lodgen LLP in Boston, where he assists clients in resolving complex employment, business, and real estate disputes. His practice covers a broad range of civil and commercial matters in federal and state courts and through alternative dispute resolution, with particular focus on employment matters involving restrictive covenants, discrimination, wrongful termination, and wage and hour litigation, as well as commercial and real estate disputes including adverse possession, breach of contract, brokerage, and zoning. He is Chair of the Federal Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section and previously served as 1st Circuit Representative on the Board of the FBA’s Younger Lawyers Division. Prior to Sherin and Lodgen, David served as a Staff Attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Public Defender Division, where he represented indigent defendants in criminal matters. He holds a B.A. from The George Washington University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law, where he graduated with Honors in the Litigation and ADR Concentration.

Aaron Spacone is a Partner at Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP in Boston, where he represents employers in a wide variety of labor and employment matters. As an employment litigator, Aaron defends employers against claims involving workplace discrimination, retaliation, and sexual harassment, and advises clients on a full range of day-to-day workplace matters including employee handbooks, hiring practices, wages, discipline, termination, and leave. He has obtained favorable outcomes for clients across the insurance, education, food processing, and healthcare industries. Beyond his employment practice, Aaron brings extensive experience as a commercial litigator in disputes involving contracts, intellectual property, and real estate. Prior to Morgan, Brown & Joy, he was an associate at a mid-size Boston firm focused on employment law and commercial litigation. Following law school, he completed judicial clerkships with the judges of the Connecticut Superior Court and with the Honorable Gilbert V. Indeglia of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and served as an intern for the Honorable William E. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. He holds a B.A., cum laude, from Villanova University and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

The Honorable Anna White Howard serves as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, appointed to the federal bench in April 2025. Before joining the judiciary, Judge Howard was on faculty at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she taught legal writing, served as the school’s judicial liaison, and practiced in the school’s Appellate Litigation Clinic — supervising students representing indigent clients before federal circuits, the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to her teaching role, she was an associate at Butler Wooten & Peak, where she litigated False Claims Act qui tam, product liability, and catastrophic personal injury cases. She also served as a career law clerk for Judge Leigh Martin May and a term law clerk for Judge Richard W. Story, both of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Within the FBA, Judge Howard serves as Chair of the Judiciary Division’s Magistrate Judges Committee and was the FY25 President of the Atlanta FBA Chapter.

David I. Brody is a Partner in Sherin and Lodgen’s award-winning Employment Department, where he represents individuals in a wide range of employment matters including contract negotiation and enforcement, wage and hour issues, wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, and whistleblowing. He is a member of the firm’s Executive Advocacy Team and an experienced employment litigator who has represented clients at trial in state and federal court and in public hearings before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the Civil Service Commission. In addition to his litigation practice, David advises executives and professionals on employment agreements, non-competition and other restrictive covenants, change of control agreements, equity and deferred compensation vehicles, and transition agreements. He is the immediate past president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association and a former co-chair of the Boston Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section. He holds a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School (2009).

The Honorable Mimi Tsankov (Ret.) is a certified mediator and arbitrator in New York City, currently serving on the JAMS Labor Panel, the American Arbitration Association Labor Panel, and a range of New York State judicial district mediation panels. For nearly two decades, she served as a judge in the federal administrative judiciary, and her career also includes prosecuting cases on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Peace Corps, as well as over ten years in private law practice. A nationally and internationally recognized leader in the legal community, she has held elected and appointed roles for decades in the ABA, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Judicial Council 2, the Federal Bar Association, and the National Association of Women Judges. She has received multiple ABA Presidential Appointments as a UN Representative to the Department of Global Communications and currently serves as Immediate Past Chair of the ABA Judicial Division’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary. She is on the adjunct law faculty at Fordham Law School and has been on the faculty of Colorado Law School and Sturm College of Law. She completed her J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law and earned an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Virginia Graduate School of Politics.