Aaron R. Gelb is a partner and head of Conn Maciel Carey LLP’s Chicago office where he leads the firm’s Midwest OSHA workplace safety practice. He has more than 25 years’ experience advising and representing clients in relation to inspections, investigations, and enforcement actions involving federal OSHA and state OSH programs and managing the full range of litigation against OSHA.  In support of the firm’s Labor and Employment practice, Aaron defends employers in equal employment opportunity matters in federal and state courts, having tried multiple cases to verdict and obtained the dismissal of more than 300 discrimination charges before the EEOC and fair employment agencies nationwide.

Aaron is frequently asked to speak at conferences, seminars, and industry-specific forums, covering numerous workplace safety and employment topics for events and organizations nationwide including the American Bar Association, the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois, the American Trucking Associations, and the Chicagoland Safety Conference to name a few. Aaron currently leads the Illinois Manufacturers Association’s workplace safety and health education series which includes quarterly webinars and 4 programs during each week of June, which is safety month.  Aaron also helps curate the firm’s annual webinar series – the OSHA Webinar Series and the Labor and Employment Webinar Series and is a frequent contributor to CMC’s blogs – the OSHA Defense Report and the Employer Defense Report.

In addition to his legal practice, Aaron works closely with CMC’s founding partners to help them realize their vision for the firm’s future, acts as a mentor to new partners and associates, actively recruits lateral partner and associate candidates, and helps craft the firm’s strategic marketing plan, including the firm’s social media efforts. Passionate about ensuring equal access to justice for all, Aaron is an active member of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and is a frequent participant in the Northern District of Illinois’ Settlement Assistance Program in which he presents pro se litigants in court-led settlement conferences.  At the height of the pandemic, Aaron served as a panelist during a program focused on compliance and legal concerns facing Black-owned small businesses struggling to survive in the face of COVID-19.

Get to Know Aaron!

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Conn Maciel Carey LLP, a boutique law firm with national practices in labor and employment, workplace safety (OSHA and MSHA), and litigation, welcomes Mikel Smith Koon in the new position of Chief Operating Officer.

Ms. Koon brings over 20 years of experience in business management, working with both large corporations and small businesses. For 15 of those years, she ran her own consulting firm, using her expertise in project and people management to service her clients. As Conn Maciel Carey’s COO, she manages essential business processes, ensuring the efficiency of the firm’s business functions. More importantly, she fills a new role made necessary by the firm’s significant growth.

“Being a relatively young firm,” says Eric Conn, Chair of the firm’s OSHA Practice, “we’ve graduated from a startup to an established, national firm. We’ve tripled in size. So, we need someone with the talent, experience and savvy to manage the firm’s growingly complex operations.”

As part of the leadership team, she works directly with the Managing Partners to develop and implement the firm’s strategic plan to elevate CMC to the next level. Continue reading →

Black History Month is a time to recognize the contributions of Black Americans throughout U.S. history.  As the month comes to a close, Conn Maciel Carey Partner, Aaron Gelb, reflects on African American mentors and peers who have impacted his life both personally and professionally.

I’ve been fortunate during my life and career to have been influenced and shaped by several African American mentors, friends, and colleagues.  Starting at the beginning, my godfather, Sidney Bertrand, had a big influence on me as I remember spending time with him and his wife, Zelda, at their apartment on 125^th Street in Harlem as a young kid, having sleepovers, etc.  Although Sidney succumbed to cancer at a relatively young age, his efforts in the face of adversity taught me a lot.

When I was in college at the University of Chicago, I worked as a teaching assistant to Continue reading →

Conn Maciel Carey LLP, a boutique law firm with national practices in labor and employment, workplace safety (OSHA and MSHA), and litigation, is pleased to announce that Lindsay DiSalvo has been promoted to Partner in the firm’s Washington, DC office.

Ms. DiSalvo defends employers in OSHA inspections, investigations, and litigation. She also represents and advises employers in all phases of the employer-employee relationship. Ms. DiSalvo was the firm’s very first Associate, joining the firm the day it was founded in 2014.

“She has been a backbone of the firm since we launched,” says Eric Conn, a co-founding partner and Chair of the firm’s national OSHA Practice. “I am excited to finally call her my Partner. She has grown into one of the finest OSHA lawyers in the country.”

“I have been working toward this my entire career,” Ms. DiSalvo says. “It is particularly exciting to be chosen by people I have been working with since the beginning. I feel like I helped build this firm, and now I am a Partner. I feel honored.”

Mr. Conn adds, “As a specialty boutique firm, what sets us apart is the mastery of the nuance of the practices for which we are known – workplace safety and employment law.  Ms. DiSalvo adds Continue reading →

Kara Maciel is a founding Partner of Conn Maciel Carey and Chair of the firm’s national labor & employment practice group. 

Ms. Maciel works to create workplace solutions for her clients.  She counsels clients on issues related to ADA accessibility requirements, wage hour compliance, prevention of harassment and discrimination, effective employment policies and procedures, and developing a compliant employee handbook. She also defends employers in litigation at both the federal and state levels.  For unionized and non-unionized companies, Ms. Maciel provides advice and counsel regarding the employer’s rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

Kara is an avid traveler (pre-pandemic) and foodie, so it makes perfect sense that she focuses much of her practice on issues facing companies in the hospitality industry (including hotel owners and managers, resorts, restaurants, and country clubs); retail; grocery; food distributors; and non-profit sectors.

Get to Know Kara!

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Today is International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the historical, cultural, and political achievements of women. To honor this day, we reflect on the significant progress made in gender equality and recognize the adversity that women continue to push through to attain a more inclusive world.  Just this year, Kamala Harris shattered the glass ceiling by not only becoming the first female U.S. Vice President, but the first Black, and South Asian-American U.S. Vice President.  

This significant event in recent history showcases the many women who have paved the way.  Women such as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress; Eleanor Roosevelt, the first U.S. delegate to the United Nations; and, of course, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the second female and the first Jewish female Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  As we already know, we experienced the loss of Justice Ginsberg just last year, but the impact she made as a pioneer who fought for women’s rights, and a leading voice for civil rights and liberties influences the gender equality movement to this day.

What do you #choosetochallenge?

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is #choosetochallenge.  This initiative is meant to drive actions that will create the gender-equal society we all deserve.  We must challenge ourselves to take accountability for our own thoughts and actions, and be the change we want to see in the world. Check out what Conn Maciel Carey’s Attorneys and Staff #choosetochallenge! Continue reading →

From all of us here in the national MSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey, to all of you, happy holidays and happy New Year.  We wish you a joyful and safe holiday season, and a 2021 that helps us all forget about this challenging year.

Please enjoy this holiday greeting from the CMC family to your family:

Despite this relentless year, we have so much to be thankful for at Conn Maciel Carey, but most of all, we thank you all for continuing to turn to us for counsel and legal services.  Please contact us if you have questions about any of the topics we have covered here on the MSHA Defense Report blog, or if you have ideas for other subjects we should be covering.  And of course, contact any of us if there is ever anything our national MSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey can do to help you or your company with MSHA law issues.

By Conn Maciel Carey’s COVID-19 Task Force

We want to alert you to a significant COVID-19 development out of the CDC yesterday.  Specifically, the CDC just announced a material revision to its definition of “Close Contact.”  The new definition makes it explicit that the 15-minute exposure period (i.e., within 6-feet of an infected individual for 15 minutes) should be assessed based on a cumulative amount of time over 24 hours, not just a single, continuous 15-minute interaction.​

Here is the new definition included on the CDC’s website:​

Close Contact – Someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period* starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.​

* Individual exposures added together over a 24-hour period (e.g., three 5-minute exposures for a total of 15 minutes). Data are limited, making it difficult to precisely define “close contact;” however, 15 cumulative minutes of exposure at a distance of 6 feet or less can be used as an operational definition for contact investigation. Factors to consider when defining close contact include proximity (closer distance likely increases exposure risk), the duration of exposure (longer exposure time likely increases exposure risk), whether the infected individual has symptoms (the period around onset of symptoms is associated with the highest levels of viral shedding), if the infected person was likely to generate respiratory aerosols (e.g., was coughing, singing, shouting), and other environmental factors (crowding, adequacy of ventilation, whether exposure was indoors or outdoors). Because the general public has not received training on proper selection and use of respiratory PPE, such as an N95, the determination of close contact should generally be made irrespective of whether the contact was wearing respiratory PPE.  At this time, differential determination of close contact for those using fabric face coverings is not recommended.​

CDC’s revised view of what constitutes a Close Contact is based on an exposure study at a correctional facility.  Here is the CDC’s public notice about the correctional facility analysis.  The analysis apparently revealed that virus was spread to a 20-year-old prison employee who interacted with individuals who later tested positive for the virus, after 22 interactions that took place over 17 minutes during an eight-hour shift.  ​

An important consequence of this revision is the impact it will have on employers’ ability to maintain staffing because it establishes a much lower threshold trigger for required quarantine.

Recall that the CDC and OSHA recommend that an employee quarantine for 14 days if s/he experiences a Close Contact exposure with someone who later is determined to have been COVID positive at the time of the contact. Continue reading →

Conn Maciel Carey LLP is excited to share that eight of its attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers and Rising Stars in 2020 in the fields of Labor & Employment and Workplace Safety Law.  Super Lawyers is a research-driven and peer-influenced rating service featuring exceptional attorneys out of select legal practice areas.  The attorneys selected are acknowledged for acquiring extraordinary professional achievement and peer recognition in their discrete areas of practice.

Eric J. Conn (Super Lawyer) is a founding partner of Conn Maciel Carey and Chair of the firm’s national OSHA • Workplace Safety Practice Group. His practice focuses exclusively on issues involving occupational safety and health law.  Before launching his own OSHA Practice, Mr. Conn practiced for more than a decade alongside the former first General Counsel of the OSH Review Commission.  Mr. Conn and his OSHA Team at Conn Maciel Carey develop safety and health regulatory strategies for employers across all industries.

Prior to founding Conn Maciel Carey, Mr. Conn was Head of an OSHA practice group that was honored as the “Occupational Health & Safety Law Firm of the Year” by Corporate INTL Magazine in its 2014 Global Awards. In 2013 and 2014, he was named a “Rising Star” by Washington, DC Super Lawyers, and as a Super Lawyer every year since.  He has also been selected for inclusion in the Washington Post’s Top-Rated Lawyers list in Washington, DC.

Kara M. Maciel (Super Lawyer) is a founding partner of Conn Maciel Carey and Chair of the firm’s national Labor • Employment Practice Group. She focuses her practice on representing employers in all aspects of the employment relationship.  Continue reading →