Jeremy Heisler

About

Jeremy Heisler is Vice-Chairman and a Founding Partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp. Throughout a legal career of more than 38 years, he has achieved success in employment and civil rights class actions and complex multi-party and multi-state litigation, producing more than $500 million in benefits to class members. Jeremy has established leading employment law precedents, including the expansion of the rights of wrongfully discharged employees. He has prevailed in novel and groundbreaking litigation against some of the largest corporations in the nation.
One of his most prominent litigation victories came in In Re Novartis Wage and Hour Litigation when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that sales representatives employed by pharmaceutical giant Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation were entitled to overtime pay under federal, New York and California law. Because of that victory, Novartis and the plaintiffs reached a $99 million class-wide settlement, the largest wage and hour settlement in 2012.
Jeremy was also instrumental in spearheading the $28 million settlement in a suit charging that three AT&T subsidiaries wrongfully denied overtime pay to a class of First-Level Managers. Additionally, he won class certification for a group of female sales representatives who alleged that their employer engaged in gender discrimination in Velez v. Novartis. A jury ultimately returned a $250 million verdict against the company – the largest gender discrimination award in United States history.
Jeremy was also part of the Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP team that litigated on behalf of a class of women victimized by the voyeur Rabbi Bernard Freundel. The situation arose from Freundel’s secret videotaping of undressed females without their consent during the course of a Jewish religious ceremony. On September 7, 2018, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia granted preliminary approval of the $14.25 million settlement of the class action suit.
In 2015, Jeremy also co-authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of women’s rights organizations and individuals in Mach Mining v. Equal Opportunity Commission, a major decision on whether and how federal courts should review the EEOC’s methods of informal dispute resolution in discrimination cases. Jeremy’s successes have been as consistent as they are varied. He has prosecuted a wide range of significant class actions, including a case against G.E. Capital with a $19.2 million settlement (consumers were overcharged with illegal fees), and a case against a major leasing company with a $15 million settlement (consumers were defrauded).
Prior to founding the firm, Jeremy served as law clerk for a major appellate court 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.