LOGAN & LOGAN - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Leader
- Partner
- Partner, 1986
James Logan has been a leader in the organized bar, including service as Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the Allegheny County Bar Association.
James H. Logan has been a named partner for every day of his 50 years of practice, all in the private practice of law. Thus, he has had the ability to be free to accept or reject cases, and has maintained his independence throughout his career.
He successfully argued an age discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988, Harbison-Walker Refractories v. Brieck, a case raising the issue of the quantity and quality of indirect, circumstantial evidence necessary for an age discrimination plaintiff to survive the employer's motion for summary judgment. He was opposed by leading business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and one of the opposing attorneys was Erwin Griswold, former Solicitor General of the United States and long-time Dean of the Harvard Law School. He was assisted and supported in this important case by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the United States Justice Department and the EEOC, the Plaintiff Employment Lawyers Association, and the AARP.
Mr. Logan was "soup to nuts" lead counsel at the trial and appellate levels in the landmark wrongful discharge case of Novosel v. Nationwide Insurance Company (employer violated public policy when it terminated a long-time manager for refusing to support the company's lobbying efforts). This was nearly the first time in the entire history of American jurisprudence when a court held that the U.S. Constitutional protections of free speech restricted a private employer's right to fire an "employee at will."
He was counsel for the plaintiff in a case where a Pennsylvania court held, for the first time, that an employer's progressive discipline system as set forth in its employee handbook, was enforceable as a "quasi-contract" against the employer, and prevented the employer from terminating an employee without first giving advance warning to the employee and an opportunity to improve his performance. (Njoku v. University of Pittsburgh, 1982).
He has practiced in downtown Pittsburgh for all of his 50 years of practice: 1970-1980 as a partner in Logan, Sharon & Swanger and successor firms; 1980-86 as a sole practitioner, assisted from 1984-1986 by Attorney Kathleen M. Logan; 1986-present: partner with Kathleen M. Logan in Logan & Logan.
He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, 1970.
He served for a number of years on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Individual Employment Rights, a national publication.
Mr. Logan has been a frequent and popular speaker and panelist in Continuing Legal Education programs sponsored by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Allegheny County Bar Association, and the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He has also made presentations for the Council for Education in Management, and has made presentations at graduate-level courses at Carnegie-Mellon University, the Katz School of Business of the University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University School of Law.
He is also admitted to practice as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of South Carolina.
Prior to his decision to concentrate in the area of employment rights litigation, James Logan also had a general practice of law, handling criminal defense, wills, estates and trusts, personal injury, contracts, workers compensation, general civil litigation, and constitutional rights litigation.
He graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1967, with a B.A. in political science.
Kathleen Logan are a husband-and-wife employment law team with more than 75 years of combined legal experience. The couple were featured in the article, "Practicing Law Can Be a Family Affair," published in Today's Attorney, a publication of the Allegheny Bar Association.
Kathleen M. Logan graduated from the West Virginia University School of Law in 1982, after having obtained her undergraduate and Master's degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. She worked her own way through school, while also being the mother of two children, both of whom are now trial attorneys themselves.
In 1983, Kathleen Logan opened her office for the private practice of law in Morgantown, West Virginia. In 1984, she began to work with James Logan, and their working relationship ultimately lead to Kathleen and Jim forming Logan & Logan in 1986, following their marriage in 1985. Since 1985, she has devoted her practice 100% to concentrating on employment law, representing and counseling both employees and employers with employment related issues, litigation and alternative resolution of employment disputes. She has vast experience representing clients in federal court proceedings in the Western District of Pennsylvania, and in Pennsylvania state courts, as well as at the anti-discrimination agency level.
Ms. Logan's practice specializes in representing and counseling executives, managers and professionals, as well as small businesses with the following: breach of contract; employment discrimination; sexual harassment; wrongful discharge; Family and Medical Leave Act; unemployment compensation; general human resource matters; drafting employment contracts and handling non-compete issues. She has worked as co-counsel with James Logan in nearly all of their cases.
In the mid 1990's, she was selected to serve on the initial Employment Law panel of the American Arbitration Association for Western Pennsylvania, being one of the first women to be so honored. She is also a member of the Commercial panel of the American Arbitration Association, and has served as an arbitrator in many arbitration hearings. Since 1986, she has been a permanent arbitrator in the Arbitration Division of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. She has decided a number of arbitration cases, and also serves as a mediator for employment cases, and is President and CEO of Employment Law Mediation Services.
She is a member of the bars not only of Pennsylvania, but also of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and the Supreme Court of South Carolina.