Richard J. Mrizek is an experienced litigator who brings a wealth of experience litigating for and against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Rich focuses his practice on representing employers in employment discrimination matters, including class litigation, trials, government enforcement actions, and conducting internal investigations. Rich also provides clients with preventive advice and counseling, focused on finding practical solutions to complicated legal problems. Rich has defended employers in systemic and class litigation brought by the EEOC across the country, including cases involving religious accommodations, sexual harassment, pay discrimination, and disability discrimination. He has also defended employers in Rule 23 class actions, including successfully defeating class certification in a putative class racial harassment suit. Rich has guided employers through EEOC systemic investigations, the EEOC conciliation process, and negotiating EEOC consent decrees. He has represented employers in federal district courts across the country, Illinois state court, the EEOC, the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and the Illinois Human Rights Commission.
Previously, Rich was a trial attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he led the government’s litigation efforts on numerous class and individual cases. His EEOC litigation involved racial discrimination in hiring, class harassment claims, disparate impact in criminal convictions, sexual harassment, class failure to accommodate claims, and disability discrimination. Rich first-chaired several trials with the EEOC, winning substantial verdicts for the government and has administered settlements of large class cases.
Rich has been a speaker at local and national conferences on issues involving federal anti-discrimination laws, including compliance under the Americans with Disabilities Act.