Kenneth F. Sparks

Shareholder

T: +1 (312) 609 7877 F: +1 (312) 609 5005

Chicago

Kenneth F. Sparks is a Shareholder with over 20 years of experience in labor and employment matters. He represents and advises private and public employers in complicated labor law and litigation matters nationwide. Among his areas of concentration are union organizing and collective bargaining, including development and implementation of integrated responses to all of the litigation, publicity and strike matters that can and often do become a part of organizing and collective bargaining. He has negotiated numerous collective bargaining agreements, tried cases before the National Labor Relations Board, handled organizing and decertification campaigns and related litigation, managed injunction and other legal issues growing out of nationwide and local strikes, quelled unlawful secondary boycott campaigns and handled numerous labor-related litigation matters in state and federal courts.

Mr. Sparks also has extensive experience handling employment matters before federal and state courts and agencies, and counseling employers on how to avoid such litigation. His areas of practice include a wide variety of Title VII, ADEA, FMLA, ADA duty of fair representation and related discrimination lawsuits and noncompete agreement disputes, workplace defamation actions and wrongful discharge matters.

Mr. Sparks is a member of the Illinois State and American Bar Associations. He is also a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia and the Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois. Mr. Sparks was selected for inclusion in 2005, 2007 and from 2011 to 2012 in Illinois Super Lawyers. In 2011, Mr. Sparks was ranked in Chambers USA in the Illinois Labor and Employment category. The Legal 500 United States guide recommends Mr. Sparks in the Labor and Employment—Labor-Management Relations category.

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• NLRB Approves Significant Changes to Representation Election Procedures
• NLRB Proposes Significant Overhaul of Rules Governing Union Campaigns
• Labor Board Lacked Authority to Issue More Than 600 Decisions
• Broad Confidentiality Provisions in Handbooks Can Be Unlawful

• Collective Bargaining
• Construction Law
• Discrimination Law
• Employment Agreements
• Employment Class Action Defense
• Employment Counseling
• Employment Litigation
• Fair Labor Standards Act
• Health Law Labor Services
• Labor and Employment Law
• Labor Relations
• Occupational Safety & Health (OSHA)
• OFCCP
• Strike Support
• Supervisor Training
• Workplace Security

• Represented major national trucking company during a nine-year International Brotherhood of Teamsters corporate campaign, organizing drive, national strike and successful decertification effort.
• Defending numerous Gissel Bargaining Orders; see , e.g. Overnite Transportation Co. v. NLRB , 280 F.3d 417 (4th Cir. 2002) (en banc).
• Obtained and enforced numerous strike violence injunctions and obtained related contempt findings.
• Suppressed secondary boycott campaigns through NLRB proceedings, Section 303 damage actions and related arbitrations.
• Negotiated and advised clients regarding collective bargaining and arbitrations.
• Successfully defended employment discrimination and wrongful termination cases in federal and state courts. 

• J.D., magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, The University of Michigan Law School, 1989
• B.S. (Chemistry),Truman Scholar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986

• Illinois, 1997
• District of Columbia, 1992
• US District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of Illinois, the Southern District of Indiana and the District of Columbia
• US District Court, District of Colorado
• US Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh and Federal Circuits

• Illinois State Bar Association
• Bar of the District of Columbia
• American Bar Association
• Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois