Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Hiring, Testing & Selection; Pay Equity; Labor & Employment; Workplace Counseling & Solutions; Labor & Employee Relations; Employment Litigation; Complex Discrimination Litigation; OFCCP & Affirmative Action Compliance; Employment Law Training; Absence Management & Accommodations; Wage & Hour Compliance Reviews and Assessments; Workplace Policies and Handbooks; Social Media; Background Screening Compliance & Litigation; California Workplace Solutions; Organizational Strategy and Analytics; Government Relations and Policy; Arbitration Strategy & Litigation; Post-Pandemic Recovery & Renewal; Reductions-in-Force & Business Restructuring; Remote Workforces; Workplace Crisis Response & Investigations; Workplace Arbitration & ADR

Mr. Baffa is Chair of the Workplace Compliance Solutions Group at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, which focuses on change management and the delivery of proactive solutions that help clients avoid mass litigation and develop internal compliance initiatives.  Each year since 2009, he has been listed by Legal 500 as one of six "Leading Lawyers" in the United States in the area of Workplace and Employment Law Counseling.  He was first inducted into the Legal 500 “Hall of Fame” in 2017, and remains one of only 500 lawyers in the Hall of Fame in all disciplines across the country, in recognition of his consistent praise received by clients.

Mr. Baffa also co-chairs the Employment Litigation Group, drawing upon his litigation experience to drive efficiency in the management of routine employment litigation, promote teamwork and the sharing of best practices, and stay abreast of employment law substantive and procedural developments.  He is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt, and uses the SeyfarthLean approach to deliver increased value to clients.

Mr. Baffa has assisted numerous clients with global pay equity analyses and DEI strategies, business restructuring and workforce reductions, and corporate culture assessments and crisis management.  He has led the centralization and process-mapping of leave of absence and disability accommodation management, developed comprehensive arbitration and dispute resolution programs, conducted exempt-status and pay practice assessments, and developed tools and systems for assessing employee engagement, reviewing hiring processes, monitoring state and local developments, and analyzing independent contractor and other alternative worker arrangements. Mr. Baffa has overseen the development, implementation, testing and validation of complex artificial intelligence tools and employee selection systems.   He has also conducted extensive employee and management training through Seyfarth Shaw At Work, including leave management training, anti-harassment training and positive employment relations training.   More recently, Mr. Baffa has helped global organizations respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to manage complex remote work and pandemic recovery projects as organizations brace for new ways of working.

Mr. Baffa has broad-based employment litigation and traditional labor experience. He handles federal and state employment litigation, including cases involving allegations of sex, race, and national origin discrimination, age discrimination and Older Worker Benefit Protection Act violations, pay discrimination claims, sex harassment issues, failure to accommodate and disability discrimination claims,  breach-of-contract and employment-at-will lawsuits and wrongful discharge disputes. He also has experience managing administrative agency investigations, including systemic initiative, pattern-and-practice and disparate impact claims involving unequal pay, hiring and pre-employment testing, background checking, promotion, and reasonable accommodation processes.  Mr. Baffa also has experience litigating labor arbitration cases, conducting election campaigns, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, and handling proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.

Partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

American Bar Association; Chicago Bar Association; Princeton Club of Chicago.

J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology (1995); A.B., Princeton University (1990).