Joan A. Sullivan named Assistant General Counsel in the Division of Operations-Management

Washington, D.C. -- National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. announced the appointment of career attorney Joan A. Sullivan as Assistant General Counsel in the Division of Operations-Management of the Office of the General Counsel in Washington, DC.
In her new position, Ms. Sullivan will assist the Associate General Counsel in the Division of Operations-Management with managing the 26 Regional Offices of the NLRB and with providing operational support for the national enforcement and administration of the National Labor Relations Act. Prior to this, Ms. Sullivan served as Deputy Assistant General Counsel in the Division of Operations-Management, a position she has held since 2012.
Ms. Sullivan was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism and Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental biology from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1985. She obtained a law degree and Certificate in Communications Law Studies from The Catholic University of America in 1990. Following law school, she worked for a year in private practice at a communications law firm in Washington, D.C. until she joined the NLRB in the Contempt Litigation and Compliance Branch in 1991. While in this Branch, Ms. Sullivan was sworn in as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Northern Ohio and was the lead prosecutor of the Agency’s first felony criminal contempt trial.
The NLRB is an independent federal agency tasked with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right of most private sector employees to organize, to engage in group efforts to improve their wages and working conditions, to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative, to engage in collective bargaining, and to refrain from any of these activities. It conducts secret-ballot elections regarding representation of workers and acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.