Overview
Diane Soubly has over 40 years of experience defending Fortune 500 and other private and public sector employers (including public schools, community colleges, and universities), and their respective committees, fiduciaries, and plans in individual and class/collective action labor and employment litigation, ERISA and employee benefits litigation, appellate litigation, administrative proceedings, and agency proceedings, including discrimination and harassment matters. She also actively engages with clients to reduce litigation risk and to utilize facilitative mediation. Her experience and knowledge, including her stint in-house as a senior officer and deputy general counsel of litigation, have made her a trusted advisor to employers navigating complex workplace issues.
Immediately before joining Fisher Phillips, Diane was Of Counsel for a Michigan-based multi-practice law firm where she focused on labor and employment law and litigation, ERISA and employee benefits, tribal law, and appellate matters. She previously served as Of Counsel with national firms based in Chicago and as a member of a national firm in Detroit.
Diane is the Contributing Editor of the Benefits Law Journal and serves on its Editorial Advisory Board. Since May of 2017, she has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Bloomberg Workplace Harassment Law treatise, 2d edition and updates, along with her Co-Editor-in-Chief and former Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Gilbert F. Casellas. She has contributed to the ABA/BNA Employment Discrimination and Employee Benefits treatises. Diane has authored hundreds of articles and has presented at various conferences on labor and employment law and litigation topics, as well as topics relating to employee benefits design and compliance issues and to benefits litigation (including Affordable Care Act compliance and litigation and ERISA preemption).
She joined the adjunct faculty in 2014 in the nationally ranked Labor and Employment Certification Program of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, where she has taught for over a decade and has developed four courses: Employee Benefits Law and Litigation; Native American Law; Harassment, Bullying, Human Trafficking, and Violence in the Workplace; and Privacy Rights in Employment.
Diane has authored amicus briefs for such national organizations as the American Benefits Counsel, the Equal Employment Advisory Council, the National Manufacturers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the HR Policy Association.
She has served pro bono for 20 years as outside general counsel to a Boston-based non-profit providing medical assistance and educational services to the women and girls of Sudan human-trafficked after the genocides of their husbands, sons, brothers, and friends. Once a debate and forensics coach whose students participated in “Children’s Lit” events (among others), Diane has donated over 450 children’s books to form a children’s library at a Michigan shelter for domestic and intimate partner violence survivors, whose children often flee violence with little more than the clothes they wear.
Diane was privileged to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles L. Levin, Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.