Richard J. Gonzalez is one of the nation’s most well-known employment attorneys, concentrating his practice in representation of employees and employers in employment discrimination and wrongful discharge cases. Within recent years, he has gained major litigation victories and substantial out-of-court settlement in cases against Fortune 500 corporations. In 2013, he was inducted into The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers—the highest honor within the labor and employment practice field.
His background prior to joining Chicago-Kent’s faculty in 1988 was as an Administrative Law Judge with the Illinois Human Rights Commission, where his decisions under the then-new state discrimination laws helped create and shape Illinois workplace law. He also brought to Chicago-Kent extensive trial experience, both as a litigator with the Chicago firm of James D. Montgomery & Associates and with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.
Professor Gonzalez is known nationally for his work with the National Employment Lawyer’s Association and is active in its Illinois Chapter. He has authored a series of practice-related articles and is a sought-after speaker on employment-related topics. Professor Gonzalez is a frequent panel member at conventions, seminars, and continuing legal education programs for the practicing bar. He has been an Illinois Bar Grader, has chaired Chicago Bar Association committees, has been a creator of Federal Court Model Jury Instructions, and currently serves as a judge and advisor to the Cook County Human Rights Commission, where he primarily authored the Commission’s rules on disability discrimination. Since 2009, he has served as Co-Executive Editor of the nation’s leading employment law treatise—Lindemann & Grossman Employment Discrimination Law (Bloomberg BNA).
Professor Gonzalez is an active and prominent presence within the Illinois employment law community. He is well-known and highly regarded for honesty, competence, and ethical conduct among plaintiff and defense counsel, the judiciary, the E.E.O.C., and state and local anti-discrimination agencies.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Professor Gonzalez obtained his law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law. He teaches Employment Discrimination, Pre-Trial Litigation, Employment Litigation, and Advanced Legal Writing for Labor and Employment Law at the law school, and has been a principal architect of Chicago-Kent’s nationally renowned Law Offices, the nation’s first fee-generating law firm within a major U.S. law school.
