Workplace Law Partners

Focus and the clients the firm represents

Workplace Law Partners is a Chicago employment law firm that works on the employee side of workplace disputes. The firm represents workers in conflicts with their employers rather than the companies. That single choice shapes everything else it does. In my opinion, a firm that picks one side of employment law tends to know its ground well.

Employee-side work covers a particular set of problems. A worker who has been pushed out or underpaid needs someone who reads contracts and statutes from the employee's point of view. The firm frames its guidance around Illinois and Cook County employment law and the local court system. It presents itself as a resource for people who are dealing with an employer, not the reverse.

The range of workplace disputes it handles

The practice areas cover most of the situations an employee runs into at work. The list is broad, and it splits into a few natural groups.

Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation

On the discrimination side, the firm handles general workplace discrimination along with religious and pregnancy discrimination. It takes sexual harassment matters. It also works on retaliation and whistleblower claims, the cases that come up when a worker speaks out and then faces consequences for it.

Pay, contracts, and the end of a job

Pay disputes form another clear strand. The firm works on wage and hour claims, unpaid wages, and overtime. It handles non-compete agreements and severance agreements, both of which tend to surface when a job ends. Wrongful termination and workers' compensation round out the core list. The firm also mentions work for executives and healthcare professionals, groups whose contracts often carry their own terms.

As a reviewer, I read this spread as full-service employee-side work. A worker with a harassment claim and a worker fighting an unpaid overtime bill can both find a match here.

How the team is built

The site names a dozen attorneys on its team page, which is a solid bench for a firm of this kind. Several of them have detail attached to their profiles, and the backgrounds vary in a useful way.

David J. Fish handles employment and labor matters and litigates for plaintiffs. He earned his law degree from Northern Illinois University College of Law in 1999. Kimberly Hilton practices employment and labor law and litigation, and she works on separation agreements, wrongful termination, discrimination, and wage disputes. John C. Kunze works from Naperville on employment and labor matters and federal regulation, with a law degree from the John Marshall School of Law.

Thalia Pacheco handles employment and labor cases and graduated from DePaul University College of Law in 2018. Seth D. Matus brings 26 years of legal experience and concentrates on business law, which adds a commercial angle to the group. Amina Jaffer works from Chicago under the firm's name. The team page also lists Sarah Milcarek, Lesley Rodriguez, Leslie Castellanos, Abby Fish, Lillian Zinser, and Jacob Exline.

The mix matters. A 1999 graduate, a 2018 graduate, and a business-law attorney point to a range of experience levels working together. That helps when a matter needs both a seasoned litigator and steady day-to-day handling. In my opinion, a team of this size gives a client room to be matched with the right lawyer rather than the only available one.

Where the firm works and which agencies it knows

Workplace Law Partners is based in Chicago and works with clients across the wider area. Its stated reach runs to Aurora, Naperville, Joliet, Rockford, and Springfield. It also covers Cook and DuPage counties.

That footprint stretches well beyond the city itself. Springfield sits in central Illinois, a good distance from a downtown Chicago office, so the firm presents itself as available to workers across much of the state. Kunze's Naperville base fits that same pattern of reaching past the Loop.

The firm also explains how the relevant agencies work. It names the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, and it describes the complaint processes those bodies run. For an employee who has never filed such a claim, a plain account of the steps has real value before anyone talks about court.

What the record shows

The firm states it has recovered more than $250 million for clients over the years. I report that as the firm's own figure, since this review draws on its website. It gives a sense of scale, and a reader can weigh it as a self-reported total rather than an outside audit.

The home page points to decades of work in this field. What comes through is a settled employee-side employment firm with a broad set of case types and a named team behind it. It handles the discrimination, harassment, pay, and separation problems that make up most workplace disputes. It knows the Illinois and Chicago agencies a worker may have to face. For an Illinois employee looking for counsel that handles employer disputes and little else, the firm reads as a clear and focused option.