James M. Stone

James M. Stone is the Office Managing Shareholder of the Cleveland, Ohio office of Jackson Lewis P.C.

With more than 25 years of experience in labor and employment law, Mr. Stone has conducted more than 120 negotiations with unions, defended hundreds of employment discrimination, wrongful discharge, and other claims in court and before administrative agencies such as the EEOC, NLRB, and Department of Labor. He has defended companies against a broad range of challenges including wrongful discharge claims, wage and hour actions, large multi-plaintiff discrimination claims, as well as counseling large, middle market, and smaller clients in a wide variety of employment and labor law matters. Several recent matters handled by Mr. Stone and his colleagues have been reported in the national media, including major cases involving the use of neutrality agreements in the automotive industry in Michigan.

He has also litigated a large number of employment cases through trial or dismissal, including those involving restructuring and reductions in force and restructuring of benefits. He has counseled clients and written on topics as diverse as the ADA, ADEA, WARN Act, the Railway Labor Act, the FMLA, sexual harassment, and other forms of discrimination, non-competition agreements, wrongful discharge, and hiring practices. Mr. Stone also has extensive familiarity with certain international employment law issues, especially those of Canada.

Mr. Stone is particularly knowledgeable about the manufacturing, transportation, automotive, health care, gaming, hospitality and steel industries. He often consults with clients regarding the legal aspects of employment terminations and downsizing. Mr. Stone believes that clients should take a pragmatic approach to their employment relations, combining the best practices from human resource, labor relations, and legal strategies, while aggressively defending themselves against unwarranted attacks on their management rights. Mr. Stone has also provided representation and advice in many successful union avoidance campaigns, labor negotiations, arbitrations, and unfair labor practice charges and actions involving neutrality agreements.

Prior to joining Jackson Lewis, Mr. Stone was chairman of the Labor and Employment Law Group at a prominent regional law firm with more than 130 lawyers.

Mr. Stone is included in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Law. He was named an Ohio Super Lawyer by Law and Politics magazine, as featured in Northern Ohio Live magazine, and was included in the 2015 Best Lawyers in America list. He was additionally named a “Leader in the Field” in Ohio in Labor and Employment Law in the 2013 and 2014 Chambers USA Legal Guide.

Mr. Stone has been extensively quoted in the local and national media on employment and labor matters, including in the last two years, several interviews in HR Magazine, HR Executive, Ideas and Trends, the Cleveland Plain Dealer,Cleveland Bar Journal, Crain’s Cleveland Business, and WCPN Public Radio. He is a past contributing editor to The Developing Labor Law.