Jeremy Heisler
Co-Vice Chairman
Phone: 646-402-5655
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/attorney-jeremy-heisler
See My Story
– Former Client
– Lorene Schaefer, Esq., President of WinWinResolve.com and Former GC of GE Transportation
– Former Client
Jeremy Heisler is a Co-Founder and Co-Vice Chairman at Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight. Jeremy has been recognized in the legal community as a Labor and Employment Star by Benchmark Litigation and Employment (2018-2020), a New York Metro Super Lawyer (2020-2023), and a Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Employment Lawyer (2019-2023).
At Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, Jeremy has represented both individuals and classes. His practice focuses on gender discrimination, wage and hour litigation, sexual harassment, civil rights, women’s rights, and consumer fraud. Jeremy’s representations have included:
- In a landmark overtime pay case on behalf of Novartis Pharmaceutical sales representatives, spearheaded the litigation, wrote the appellate briefs and argued the appeal that achieved a victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Because of these efforts, the sales representatives received a $99 million class-wide settlement, the largest wage and hour settlement in 2012, and one of the largest in history
- Obtaining a $250 million jury verdict—the largest gender discrimination award in U.S. history—for a class of female sales representatives in Velez v. Novartis who alleged that their employer engaged in gender discrimination
- Recovering a $28 million settlement for a class of First-Level Managers wrongfully denied overtime pay by AT&T
- Reaching a $14.25 million settlement for a class of women victimized by Rabbi Bernard Freundel, who had secretly videotaped undressed females without their consent during the course of a Jewish religious ceremony
- Achieving a $10 million settlement and structural changes and improvements for a class of residents living in the Gateway Plaza housing complex after they alleged that the owner, the LeFrak Organization, failed to adequately maintain heat in the winter and refused to supply air conditioning in the summer
- Attaining an $11 million settlement on behalf of thousands of New Jersey consumers who accused Energy Plus Holdings LLC and Energy Plus Natural Gas LP of perpetrating an illegal bait-and-switch scheme by overcharging members of the class for energy costs
- Achieving a landmark ruling extending the statute of limitations for discrimination claims and expanding the right to a jury trial for employment discrimination plaintiffs under the New York State Human Rights Law in Murphy v. Am. Home Products Corp.
- Securing an appellate victory for a victim of police brutality committed by an off-duty New York city police officer in Graham v. City of New York
- Accomplishing a major class action ruling in Naposki v. First National Bank of limiting the ability of defendants to “buy off” class representatives and prematurely terminate the class action lawsuits
Jeremy received his law degree magna cum laude from Brooklyn Law School and his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College. While at Brooklyn Law School, Jeremy served as Senior Editor of the Law Review. In this capacity, he authored “Williams v. Walsh, Tolling of Statutes of Limitations in Section 1983 Actions – Prior Resort to State Forums Will Not Stop the Clock.” The article appeared in Brooklyn Law Review’s Annual Second Circuit Review.
A member of the New York state bar, Jeremy has co-authored articles on labor and employment issues, including “States – The Final Frontier: How State Law and State Courts Can Provide Avenues for Justice and Resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Lochner Lite” Anti-Employee and Anti-Consumer Agenda,” which appeared in the Fall, 2021 Edition of The Labor Law Journal, p. 125 (Wolters Kluwer Law and Business), and “A Practitioner’s Guide to Incentive Payments in Federal Employment Class and Collective Actions,” which appeared in the February 2014 issue of Impact Fund: Strategic Litigation for Social Justice.
After graduating from law school, Jeremy served as a law clerk for the Appellate Term, First Department in New York, where he drafted bench memoranda and judicial opinions on appeals ranging from constitutional law actions and criminal prosecutions to multi-million-dollar real estate litigation. Before co-founding Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight Jeremy was an associate at the country’s leading class action firm, where he was instrumental in winning landmark pro-employee precedents.
When Jeremy is not lawyering, he enjoys reading the plays, sonnets, and poems of William Shakespeare, as well as European medieval literary works, foremost among them, Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron.
Education
- J.D., Brooklyn Law School, magna cum laude
- Editor, Brooklyn Law Review
- B.A., Brooklyn College, cum laude
Clerkship
- Law Clerk, Appellate Term, First Department, 1980-1981
Bar Admissions
- New York, 1980
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1984
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1980
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1980
- The 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights and Plaintiff Employment Lawyers
- New York Metro Super Lawyers: Class Actions, 2020-2023
- The 2023 Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights and Plaintiff Employment Lawyers
- 2019-22 Lawdragon 500 Plaintiff Employment Lawyer
- 2021 Benchmark Litigation Labor and Employment Star – Northeast in the practice area of Labor and Employment
- 2020 Benchmark Litigation Labor and Employment Star – Northeast in the practice area of Labor and Employment
- 2020-21 New York Metro Super Lawyer
- 2019 Benchmark Litigation Labor and Employment Star – Northeast in the practice area of Labor and Employment
- 2018 Benchmark Litigation Labor and Employment Star – Northeast in the practice area of Labor and Employment
I will not hesitate to highly recommend your firm to any of my acquaintances that encounter a similar situation
“I wanted to express my sincere thanks for your firm’s guidance and help with getting the matter with [redacted] settled this week. David [Tracey], thank you for your calm demeanor and patience in dealing with them as well as the EEOC throughout the process. It was an absolute pleasure working with someone of your professionalism and competence! I want to take this opportunity to thank Surbhi Dhar, who worked competently and incessantly upfront to get things started – Jeremy, you were right on about her! Thanks also to Danielle, who participated in our discussions upfront as well as provided valuable guidance from a CA perspective, as well as Alec for working behind the scenes with David throughout. Jeremy, it was an absolute pleasure discussing all the case details and working with you upfront – Thanks for your help getting such an expert and competent team on this matter. I will not hesitate to highly recommend your firm to any of my acquaintances that encounter a similar situation.”
– Former Client
Record of success.
“Even among the nation’s top tier class action and plaintiffs law firms, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight stands out in its record of success. Led by David Sanford and Jeremy Heisler, this Firm has proven again and again it has the necessary talent, experience, intelligence, creativity, and resources to represent workers and whistleblowers successfully against even the country’s largest employers.”
– Lorene Schaefer, Esq., President of WinWinResolve.com and Former GC of GE Transportation
Support and sensitivity.
“You probably hear this all the time but thank you so much, this is indeed closure. I appreciate very much the results (which is more than I expected) but more the support and sensitivity Rebecca, Nicole, Jeremy, and your firm have shown.”
– Former Client
Robert De Niro Lawsuit
The lawsuit, which alleged that De Niro and Canal Productions subjected their longtime employee, Graham Chase Robinson, to a hostile work environment, resulted in a jury verdict of $1.2 million for the plaintiff.
Starion Energy Consumer Fraud Class Action
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a $50 million nationwide class action complaint alleging that Connecticut-based Starion Energy perpetrates an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that has deceived and defrauded thousands of energy consumers out of millions of dollars. The suit was filed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
MetLife Overtime Pay Violation Class Action
The lawsuit sought unpaid overtime wages for Claim Specialists who worked on long term disability insurance claims (“LTD Claim Specialists”) for MetLife and two of its subsidiaries, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and MetLife Insurance Company USA.
Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak and Stewart, P.C. Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
The complaint asserted that Ogletree uses a number of tactics to shortchange female shareholders in pay and promotions. The firm manipulates allocation of origination credits by unfairly attributing such credits to male shareholders, even when women at the firm are the ones who bring in the client.
Rabbi Freundel Voyeurism Class Action
Early in 2015, Freundel plead guilty in a criminal proceeding before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to numerous counts of illicitly filming women as they used the “mikvah”- a Jewish ritual bath frequently used by married Orthodox women as well as by women undergoing conversion to Judaism.
In re Gateway Plaza Residents Litigation
The class action suit was brought by Maureen Koetz, a resident of the neighborhood’s Gateway Plaza, a development with more than 1,700 rental units in the heart of lower Manhattan. Ms. Koetz, a former vice-president of the Gateway Tenants’ Association, described how temperatures inside the complex regularly dropped to below 55 degrees in winter.
Energy Plus Consumer Fraud Class Action – $11 Million Settlement
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a class action complaint in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey against Energy Plus Holdings LLC and Energy Plus Natural Gas LP (Energy Plus) for perpetrating an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that deceived and defrauded thousands of New Jersey consumers of millions of dollars.
Columbia University Title IX Lawsuit
The Complaint, brought under the federal Title IX law as well as the New York City Human Rights Law, alleged that Columbia University and Professor Harris consistently and systematically violated the rights of the then-29-year-old Plaintiff Jane Doe, with Professor Harris, age 79, subjecting her to sexual harassment and other sexual exploitation and Columbia University ignoring her complaints.
Norton Rose Fulbright/Chadbourne and Parke LLP Gender Discrimination Class Action – $3.1 Million Settlement
According to Plaintiff Kerrie Campbell, a nationally recognized trial lawyer and then-partner in Chadbourne’s Washington, DC office, female partners at the firm were excluded from positions of decision-making authority and received less pay and bonuses even when they out-performed their male counterparts. There was only a one-tier partnership, with every partner characterized as an equity partner.
Sanofi-Aventis Gender Discrimination Class Action – $24 Million Settlement
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight represented a class of approximately 6,000 female sales employees in pay and promotion and gender discrimination claims against the pharmaceutical corporation, Sanofi Aventis U.S. The settlement produced more than $15 million in monetary benefits plus the $13.4 million reverberating effect of a $2 million pay equity adjustment over a five-year period.
Novartis Pharmaceutical Wage and Hour Class Action – $99 Million Settlement
In 2012, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight reached a $99 million settlement with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (”Novartis”) to resolve a nationwide class and collective action brought on behalf of thousands of Novartis sales representatives. The settlement ranks among the largest wage and hour settlements.
AT&T Wage and Hour Class Action Litigation – $28 Million Settlement
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight represented thousands of AT&T employees in three class and collective action cases involving the telephone giant’s failure to pay overtime to its “First-Level Managers.” The cases settled for a combined $28 million, among the largest recent wage and hour settlements.
Ian Jack Miller v. Zara USA, Inc. et al.
In 2015, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a $40 million lawsuit against Zara USA, Inc., the flagship brand for the largest fashion retailer in the world, Inditex Group. The lawsuit alleged that Zara discriminated against and then fired its in-house counsel, Ian Jack Miller, because he is Jewish, American, and gay. The case sought damages for creating a hostile work environment, pay discrimination, and unlawful and retaliatory termination based on Mr. Miller’s nationality, religion, and sexual orientation.
Fabio Silva v. Giorgio Armani Corp., Et. Al.
According to his complaint, during his tenure at Giorgio Armani Corporation, the company’s Chief Financial Officer informed General Counsel Fabio Silva he did not trust Mexicans, and thereafter subjected Mr. Silva to increased scrutiny and discriminatory treatment. When General Counsel Silva reported this treatment to Chief Operations Officer Giorgio Fornari and Senior Vice President of Human Resources Lucinda Rosso, General Counsel Silva was berated for complaining. General Counsel Silva was then denied a raise for reporting the discrimination.
- When Managing Partners Watch, Trial Attys Face 2 Juries, Law360, January 31, 2024
- VP’s Sex Discrimination Suit Against De Niro Partially Tossed, Law360, May 26, 2023
- De Niro Accuser in Sex Bias Suit Rips Grift Claims, Law360, April 20, 2023
- Robert DeNiro’s $6 Million Lawsuit Against Ex-Employee Meant To Humiliate, The Richest, March 17, 2022
- Robert De Niro Went to Manhattan D.A. Over Ex-Employee’s Spending, She Says, The Hollywood Reporter, April 15, 2021
- Robert De Niro reportedly claims ex-assistant threatened him before suing, FOX Business, January 22, 2020
- Robert De Niro accuser seeking to dismiss actor’s suit against her, FOX Business, December 17, 2019
- Why The Defense Bar Celebrates Kennedy, Jun 28, 2018
- What sexual-harassment victims should know about the new tax law, Market Watch, June 19, 2018
- High Court To Mull Class Arbitration In Data Breach Suit, Law360, May 2, 2018
- Sanford Heisler Sharp Announces Promotions and New Leadership Roles, January 4th, 2018
- Forest Laboratories Agrees to $4M Gender Discrimination Settlement, Top Class Action, October 10, 2017
- Sanford Heisler Sharp Files Title IX Lawsuit Against Columbia University and Noted History Professor, William V. Harris, October 2nd, 2017
- MetLife Hit With $50M Class Action Alleging Unpaid Overtime, Law.com, February 07, 2017
- Attys React To High Court’s Constructive Discharge Ruling, Law360, May 23, 2016
- Cushman and Wakefield Hit With $40M Age, Gender Bias Suit, Law360 Employment Authority, October 6, 2015
- Female Workers Win Conditional Cert In $100M Sex-Bias Row, Law360, September 2, 2015
- NYC Tenants File $100M Class Action Over Frigid Temps, Apr 1, 2014
- Female Cushman and Wakefield Exec Files $20M Bias Lawsuit, Law360, October 21, 2013
- Six More Women Join $100M Forest Labs Bias Case, Law360, November 05, 2012
- A Big Win for Pharma Cos. in Overtime Case Law.com, June 19, 2012
- Energy Plus Being Sued by Sanford Wittels and Heisler, May 2nd, 2012
- 2nd Circuit Finds Novartis Drug Reps Not Exempt From Overtime Law, Law.com, July 07, 2010
- Wal-Mart Ruling Could Wreak Havoc on Employers, Law360, April 27, 2010
- DC firm goes West for wage-and-hour offensive, Law.com, August 24, 2009
Publications
- States – The Final Frontier: How State Law and State Courts Can Provide Avenues for Justice and Resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Lochner Lite” Anti-Employee and Anti-Consumer Agenda, Wolter Kluwer’s Labor Law Journal, September 14, 2021. Co-Author.