Rosemary A. Townley has been a self-employed full-time arbitrator and mediator for over 30 years based in Larchmont, New York in the Metropolitan New York City area, but whose practice includes both national and international cases. She has been named to Super Lawyers and to the Top Women Attorneys in Metro New York since 2014.
Ms. Townley is listed as an arbitrator with various panels of the American Arbitration Association including the following: Class Actions, Large, Complex Cases, Commercial, Employment, Individually Negotiated Employment Contracts, and cases assigned by the International Centre on Dispute Resolution. Ms. Townley is also listed as a member of the Distinguished Panel on Sports Law of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
Her labor arbitration and mediation experience includes deciding thousands of cases involve disputes in both the private and public sector. She served as one of four, solo grievance arbitrators (non-injury) under the agreement between the National Football League and the NFL Players Association.
Her employment practice primarily involves the arbitration and mediation of disputes, with a concentration in those matters between executives and companies, including matters involving international investing banking and trading. She has decided over 100 cases in the employment field involving claims both domestic and international including the following:
- breach of employment agreements
- severance pay
- compensation
- termination with/without reason
- change of control
- retention agreements
- stock/restricted stock entitlement
- whistle-blowing/SOX
- discretionary bonus entitlement
- book of business
- ADEA discrimination
- ADA discrimination
- Family Medical Leave Act
- Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
- All Other Statutory Discrimination Claims under local (NYCCRA), state (NYSHRA) and other federal acts (age, hostile work environment; national origin; pregnancy; sex; sexual harassment; race, among other protected categories).
Ms. Townley is a former Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. She is also the former Legal Coordinator and past Governor of the Board of the National Academy of Arbitrators. She has been named a Fellow of the following associations:
- ABA College of Labor and Employment Law
- Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK)
- ABA Bar Foundation
- American College of e-Neutrals (e-Discovery)
- New York Bar Foundation.
Ms. Townley is a frequent speaker on employment law issues and has presented before groups such as the ABA, the New York State Bar Association, Georgetown University Law Center's Employment Law and Litigation Institute, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, NELA, and the Metropolitan Black Bar of the City of New York. Her most recent appearances as a Moderator-Presenter include the following: 2016 Annual Conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education, Arbitration Review in Higher Education, Informal Discovery in Federal and State Courts, 2016 Annual Meeting of the Section on Labor and Employment Law and its 2017 Annual Meeting on the topic Legal Constraints on Freedom to Speak: From the Gridiron to the Classroom.
Ms. Townley has been published widely in the area of labor and employment law and is a former adjunct professor of law at St. John's University School of Law in New York City. She is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. She is admitted to the bars of New York State, the Southern and Eastern District Courts of New York, the United States Supreme Court and the Bar of the Oneida Tribal Nation.
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