Advanced Employee Relations

Susan Brecher is the Director of HR Dispute Management and Resolution Certificate and Curriculum/Training Design at the Cornell ILR School’s Scheinman Institute. She is an employment practices attorney and expert in training and curriculum design for both online and classroom-based workshops. She has served as Director of Statewide Management Programs and provided oversight of EEO, Labor Relations, Human Resources, and Management Development programs. Susan has partnered with over 100 private, public, and non-profit organizations to develop and present customized training programs. She has a law degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Gayle F. Wasserman, Esq., is a management-side employment attorney and human resources consultant with over 18 years of experience. Since establishing her own private practice, Wasserman Law, in 2004, Gayle has regularly counseled clients throughout the New York tri-state area on a variety of employment and workplace matters, focusing on investigations, training, and outsourced HR advice. Gayle currently teaches at Cornell University’s ILR Outreach Division, where she conducts professional development programs for HR professionals, managers, and others with employee relations responsibilities. There, she delivers and implements onsite and offsite programs in the areas of HR/EEO Law, Preventing Workplace Harassment, Internal Investigations, and Employee Relations.

In private practice, Gayle utilizes her employment law experience to advise on the creation and implementation of employee handbooks and workplace policies and procedures. She also creates and conducts a variety of training seminars on workplace law, liability avoidance, and employment practices, covering issues such as respectful and appropriate workplace conduct, harassment, discrimination, #metoo concerns, communication issues, and sensitivity matters. Gayle frequently conducts workplace investigations into allegations of employee misconduct and concerns raised by employees. Moreover, she counsels employers on day-to-day workplace issues and all aspects of the employment relationship, including Equal Employment Opportunity compliance, leaves of absence, accommodation issues, wage and hour laws, hiring and firing practices, employee discipline, and performance reviews and documentation. In addition to regularly supporting her clients’ internal counsel and HR staff and serving as an outsourced HR function to smaller businesses, Gayle has also served as a full-time secondee to businesses needing employee relations support.

Gayle began her career as an associate in New York in the Labor and Employment Department of Proskauer Rose LLP, one of the nation’s leading labor and employment law firms, and subsequently practiced with Kauff McClain & McGuire LLP, a prominent boutique law firm in New York focused on the practice of labor and employment law. At those firms, Gayle defended clients in numerous employment-related cases in state and federal courts and before federal and state agencies, and represented and counseled employers in all facets of employment law. Gayle also served as an adjunct professor at Hunter College in NYC, where she taught undergraduate Business Law.

Gayle earned her law degree from New York University School of Law in 1999, where she received the annual award for excellence in the study of labor relations. While at NYU, Gayle was an editor and advocate on the Moot Court Board and was elected to the Order of the Barristers. She received her undergraduate degree with honors in Organizational Studies from the University of Michigan. She is a member of the New York City Bar Association and Society of Human Resource Management.

Tracey I. Levy is the Principal of Impact Workplace Training, LLC, and the founder of Levy Employment Law, LLC. Through Impact, Tracey develops and delivers training for managers, HR professionals, and individual employees on harassment prevention and other appropriate workplace conduct, employment law compliance, and HR best practices. Tracey’s training programs build on her 25 years of legal and employee relations experience, for which she annually has been recognized by Super Lawyers for the New York Metro area since 2016.

In her private law practice, Tracey guides managers and in-house counsel through the full employee life cycle. She provides practical advice on workplace-related issues, including performance management, worker classification, medical/religious accommodation, hiring, promotion, termination, and reductions-in-force (RIFs), and she defends businesses against discrimination, wage and hour, and unemployment claims before government agencies. Tracey also works with organizations on developing and updating their employment policies and crafting agreements that provide appropriate notice to staff but in a user-friendly tone. Since the firm’s founding in 2013, Tracey has been publishing her quarterly newsletter, Takeaways, to inform employers of concrete actions they need to take in response to developments in the law.

Tracey is regularly called upon to serve as an independent outside investigator and fact-finder, conducting workplace investigations in response to internal employee complaints. Since 2015, Tracey has served as an Educator – Professional Programs with Cornell University ILR School’s Scheinman Institute in Manhattan, where she trains HR professionals and managers on conducting workplace investigations, as well as on employment law compliance and effective employee relations.

Prior to launching her law firm and training business, Tracey was an Employee Relations Specialist with UBS AG, where she served as the Americas HR policy lead, directing workplace investigations and counseling managers to resolve workplace issues. Tracey also worked for more than 10 years as an employment attorney with Proskauer Rose LLP, where she advised and litigated on behalf of a broad range of clients to resolve their employment law issues.

Tracey holds an advanced law degree from Yale Law School’s LLM program, a J.D. from Albany Law School, and a B.A. from Union College. She is admitted to practice in New York and Connecticut. Tracey is a member of the Westchester Business Council and chairs the Legislative Committee of the Westchester Human Resource Management Association, and she is a member of local, state, and federal bar associations.

Patricia Harmon is an innovation consultant, facilitator, and executive coach. She has conducted advanced thinking workshops for global organizations such as Estee Lauder, Goldman Sachs, Merck & Co., Motorola, and The New York Times. Pat helps organizations bring about change by using a comprehensive collection of techniques including Lateral Thinking™ and Green Innovation, a science of eco-sustainability, to provide deliberate methods to think innovatively. Her practice includes emotional intelligence assessment and leadership development to help companies create value.

Katrina Nobles is the Director of Conflict Programs for the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, focusing on educating the next generation of neutrals and practitioners on campus and in the workplace. Katrina designs curriculum, instructs professional programs, and facilitates discussions for organizational workplace conflicts. She also teaches the Campus Mediation Practicum, an on-campus credit course that applies mediation skills to the campus judicial system, allowing students to work as peer mediators. Katrina has presented at national conflict resolution conferences on Facilitating Collaborative Problem Solving, Cross-Cultural Communication, and Conflict Diagnosis. In addition to her position at Cornell, she facilitates for the Global Nomads Group, bringing together, through video conference, K-12 students in the United States and Middle East/North Africa region. She has practiced mediation for over 10 years, and prior to her employment at Cornell, Katrina was the Cortland County Coordinator for New Justice Mediation Services. During that time, she mediated hundreds of community, child custody/visitation, child support, and family disputes. Katrina holds a master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Engagement from Antioch University Midwest.