Making Legally Correct Selection Decisions
Jim will share with us some of the issues that practitioners need to remember when making selection decisions. His discussion will include strategies that can be used to help reduce the risk of litigation. He will share with us recent developments on the Legal front and their potential impact on selection decisions. Jim will discuss how important it is that practitioners be aware of the Legal landscape in order to best serve clients and employers.
Speaker
James H. Coil III
Partner, Kilpatrick Stockton
Jim Coil has practiced with the law firm today known as Kilpatrick Stockton LLP since 1974 and is one of the firm's most experienced partners concentrating in the representation of management in all phases of employment-related legal matters. He graduated from Duke University in 1967 and from Harvard Law School in 1970. Before joining the firm in 1974, he served four years as a Captain and Judge Advocate in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Mr. Coil’s practice focuses on employment litigation, affirmative action compliance, and general counseling of clients on both long-range personnel policies and practices and the day-to-day legal issues that arise in the employment context. In the litigation arena, Mr. Coil has represented employers in trial courts throughout the nation and has practiced before the United States Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits; the Supreme Court of Georgia; and the Georgia Court of Appeals. He has tried many cases to completion with favorable verdicts for the defendant. In addition, he has won scores of cases on summary judgment and has negotiated favorable settlements in numerous other cases. With extensive experience in class action lawsuits, Mr. Coil has defended multiplaintiff claims alleging wage and hour violations; race, sex, and age discrimination; and ERISA violations. Many of these cases resulted in a denial of class certification.
In the area of affirmative action, Mr. Coil assists employers in developing written AAPs, establishing policies and programs to implement effective diversity initiatives, and represents their interests in compliance reviews by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. He is national counsel for AA matters for a number of Fortune 100 companies and has represented clients in all parts of the country in both standard compliance audits and the more complex “glass ceiling” audits.
Mr. Coil has written The New Supervisor’s EEO Handbook, a guide to help front-line managers become familiar with federal antidiscrimination laws. This book is now in its third edition. Mr. Coil frequently shares the experience and knowledge he has acquired as a litigator and legal counselor by speaking on employment-related topics at seminars and conferences. In addition, he has authored or co-authored more than fifty articles on employment law topics, including "An Overview of Affirmation Action," "Affirmative Action: New Rules and a New Philosophy," "Action Needed on Affirmative Action," “Affirmative Action Reaches a Crossroads - Not a Dead End,” "Past Sins and Future Transgressions: The Debate Over Retroactive Application of the 1991 Civil Rights Act," "Managing Workforce Diversity in the Nineties," “The Tip of the Iceberg: Early Trends in ADA Enforcement,” “Three Steps to Creating Effective Employee Releases,” “Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: The Supreme Court Limits After-Acquired Evidence as a Defense in Employment Discrimination Actions,” “The ADA at Three Years: A Statute in Flux,” “Employment Law Basics in Latin America: Venezuela and Brazil,” and “State As Well As Federal Red Tape Ties Up Employment-Related Consumer Reports.”
Mr. Coil is listed in the book “The Best Lawyers in America.”
