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Employment Law

The law firm of Robert David Goodstein represents individuals employed in New York State in employment discrimination and other employment related matters. (Please see the Prominent Litigation section of this Web site for a sampling of these cases). We also represent public employee labor unions in and around the Westchester area. Over the course of our 30+ years in practice, Mr. Goodstein has represented the City of Poughkeepsie Police Benevolent Association, the Town of Mamaroneck Police Benevolent Association, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association of Rockland County and the Westchester County Correction Officers Benevolent Association; and we presently represent the Eastchester Fire Fighters Union. Mr. Goodstein also recently secured a $2.355 million settlement for a group of Westchester correction officers in a sex discrimination case brought against the County. The firm has served as counsel to the Guardians Association of the Police Department of the City of New York, the Westchester-Rockland Guardians Association, the New York City Housing Police Guardians Association, the Latino Officers Association of the New York City Police Department and the Westchester Hispanic Coalition.

Mr. Goodstein also represents employees who are the subjects of reports made to the New York State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment arising out of events which occurred while the employees were working. Mr. Goodstein represents such an employee up to and during the hearing to obtain a determination that the report against the employee is "unfounded" and the record sealed. Thus, the employee will be eligible either to procure new employment in the childcare field, or if a union member, to be reinstated.

Robert David Goodstein is a 1975 graduate of St. John’s University School of Law. Both before and after his admission to the bar, Mr. Goodstein was associated with the New York Civil Liberties Union, working in the area of employment discrimination law. He then became employed by the New York State Division of Human Rights, first as a senior attorney and assistant counsel of the Division of Human Rights, and as lead attorney of the Division Initiated Complaint Unit. Commencing October 1981, Mr. Goodstein entered private practice; and in 1985 he and attorney Eileen West founded the law firm of Goodstein & West, which dissolved on May 1, 2007, and Mr. Goodstein commenced his own practice. Throughout his career, Mr. Goodstein’s case load has been almost exclusively employment discrimination and employment related litigation. Mr. Goodstein has served as Chair of the New Rochelle Human Rights Commission, as legal director for the Westchester Civil Liberties Union, and as a commentator for Court TV in matters of employment discrimination. He also served for many years as a member of the Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association of New York, (the bar association of attorneys representing plaintiffs in employment discrimination matters) and as chair of the Regional Advisory Counsel for the New York State Division of Human Rights (the umbrella group of local civil rights agencies in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties). He has written articles on employment discrimination law, has been a guest lecturer at St. John’s University School of Law speaking on employment discrimination matters, and has lectured to other attorneys on employment related issues.

Attorney Paula Johnson Kelly is a 1988 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, where she was awarded the Hon. Edward Thompson Award for Excellence in Trial Advocacy. Before joining Goodstein & West, and now Robert David Goodstein, Ms. Johnson Kelly was a sole practitioner and of counsel to small firms and sole practitioners in employment and discrimination matters. In that capacity she represented plaintiffs at trials of discrimination cases, including actions under the Americans with Disabilities Act and matters involving sex and pregnancy discrimination. Ms. Johnson Kelly also researched and wrote an opinion for a local village justice which declared a section of the Penal Law unconstitutional since it did not provide males with equal protection under the law. Ms. Johnson Kelly joined Goodstein & West in October 1999, and when the said firm dissolved, she joined Robert David Goodstein on May 1, 2007. The majority of Ms. Johnson Kelly's case load centers upon various types of employment discrimination under federal, state and local law. She has represented the Guardians Association of the Police Department of the City of New York in an action for declaratory relief regarding the Department’s disciplinary policies, argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving the constitutionality of a “perp walk” where a correction officer was deliberately paraded in front of the media following his arrest, and recently won the federal retaliation case of an employee who was terminated after complaining of race discrimination. Ms. Johnson Kelly is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association of New York and has lectured at its seminars.  She is also a member of the Westchester County Women’s Bar Association where she is currently co-chairperson of the Employment Law Committee and is a member of the New Rochelle Bar Association.

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