Employment Relationships: Law & Practice

Mark W. Bennett was appointed a United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Iowa on August 26, 1994. He had previously served, from December 2, 1991, as a United States magistrate judge in a sister district, the Southern District of Iowa. In 1975, upon graduation from the Drake University Law School, Judge Bennett began learning and studying his craft by laboring in the cotton rows of civil rights law as a founding partner in the Des Moines law firm that eventually became Babich, Bennett & Nickerson. During more than 16 years, his extensive practice in employment discrimination, employment law, constitutional law, and other civil rights litigation, on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants, took him to numerous state and federal trial and appellate courts, throughout the United States. This included arguing Evans v. Oscar Mayer Co., 441 U.S. 750 (1979), in the United States Supreme Court. Outside the courtroom Judge Bennett has also applied the experience gained as a practitioner, serving as a member of numerous professional committees, as a frequent seminar speaker, and as a teacher. Prior to his appointment to the federal bench, Judge Bennett was involved in professional organizations and community service, including serving as the first Chair of the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 Advisory Group for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, as a member of the Board of Governors of Trial Lawyers, and as a Master of the Bench of the Blackstone Inn of Court. He is often invited to speak at seminars throughout the country for the bench and bar on topics such as federal litigation, civil rights, employment law, and professionalism. He has also enjoyed teaching law students at the Drake University Law School (employment discrimination, employment law, and trial advocacy) and at the University of Iowa College of Law (trial advocacy). Judge Bennett recently completed a project redesigning case management software for federal district court judges as the project executive sponsor. Although law has been the passion of his professional life, Judge Bennett also enjoys hoeing the rows of his own garden, gourmet cooking, making brass mobiles, and navigating the Internet.

Howard J. Rubin is chairman of the Litigation Department and the Employment Practice Group at the New York City law firm of Davis & Gilbert. He is a graduate of Colgate University and Columbia Law School. He returned to Columbia to teach employment law and served as co-director of its Employment Rights Project from 1974 through 1978. In that capacity, Mr. Rubin litigated a number of significant discrimination cases, including acting as co-counsel for the plaintiffs in sex discrimination class actions against The New York Times and Readers’ Digest Association. He was also co-counsel representing the plaintiffs in the sex discrimination class actions brought against several of the largest law firms in New York City in the early 1970s for the failure to hire female lawyers. Mr. Rubin joined Davis & Gilbert L.L.P. in 1979 and became a partner in 1984. Since joining Davis & Gilbert L.L.P., Mr. Rubin has defended countless employment discrimination lawsuits, as well as numerous lawsuits in other fields, including First Amendment, defamation, real estate brokerage and fair market rental value, copyright, intellectual property, and breaches of employment and other contracts as well as entertainment industry labor arbitrations. In his capacity as head of the Employment Practice Group, Mr. Rubin consults on a variety of personnel-related issues, including hiring and firing, employment contracts and severance packages, discrimination statutes, and the preparation of affirmative actions plans and personnel policies, manuals, and handbooks. He spends most of his time counseling employers on how to avoid litigation by making appropriate human resources decisions. In addition to representing companies, he represents executives in negotiating severance packages as well as employment agreements. He is co-author of Fair Employment Litigation (West 1975). He is also co-author of two manuals on employment law and litigation produced under grants from the Equal Opportunity Employment Opportunity Commission and the New York State Division of Human Rights. Mr. Rubin also serves as a certified mediator in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Away from the law, Mr. Rubin has served as a member of the Board of Directors of UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, President of Town & Village Synagogue, Chairman of the Ivry Prozdor High School of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a student in the Wexner Heritage Foundation program.

Donald J. Polden is Dean and Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. From 1993 to 2003, he served as Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Memphis. He graduated from The George Washington University and received his J.D. degree in 1975 from Indiana University School of Law, where he served as Associate Editor of its law review. Dean Polden has taught courses in corporate law, contracts, federal antitrust, agency and partnership, mergers and acquisitions, federal securities law, and other topics. He has consulted with and advised employers and law firms providing legal advice in antitrust and corporate and commercial litigation, including disputes involving non-competition agreements, and on corporate planning and employment matters. He has published articles on antitrust and federal securities law and is a frequent lecturer on professional education programs. Dean Polden is a member of the American Bar Association’s Sections on Business Law and Antitrust Law. He is a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation and the Tennessee Bar Foundation and was elected to The American Law Institute in 1993. In 2003, he was elected to the Fellows of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He is a member of the Consultative Group of the Restatement (Third) of Employment Law.