Jason Zuckerman represents employees in a wide variety of workplace-related disputes, including whistleblower retaliation, harassment, qui tam, wrongful discharge, discrimination, non-compete, and other employment-related claims. His broad experience includes practicing employment law at a national law firm, serving as a Principal at The Employment Law Group, and serving as Senior Legal Advisor to the Special Counsel at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency charged with protecting whistleblowers in the federal government. In 2012, the Secretary of Labor appointed Zuckerman to serve on the Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to the Secretary of Labor to improve OSHA’s administration of federal whistleblower protections.
Zuckerman is rated 10 out of 10 by Avvo, based largely on client reviews, and rated AV Preeminent® by Martindale-Hubbell based on peer reviews. He was recognized by Washingtonian magazine as a “Top Whistleblower Lawyer” in 2007 and 2009, selected by his peers to be included in The Best Lawyers in America® in the category of employment law (2011-2014), and selected by his peers to be listed in SuperLawyers (2012 and 2015) in the category of labor and employment law. He has lectured extensively on whistleblower law and employment law, especially on Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley and False Claims Act actions, and has written several articles on whistleblower protections. Zuckerman co-authored a chapter on litigating whistleblower cases for Whistleblowing: The Law of Retaliatory Discharge, drafted a chapter on the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act for the D.C. Practice Manual, and is a contributing author of International Handbook on Whistleblowing Research. For nearly a decade, Zuckerman has been a contributing author to an annual update on the whistleblower protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act published by the ABA Fair Labor Standards Legislation Committee. Zuckerman’s articles have been cited in various treatises and in a federal court opinion on the scope of Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protection. Zuckerman has trained administrative law judges, agency EEO directors, senior OIG officials and delegations from more than 30 countries on federal whistleblower protections.
In addition to shaping whistleblower protection law through successful outcomes for clients, Zuckerman has worked with whistleblower advocates to draft and lobby for passage of whistleblower protection laws, and advocate for more effective and vigorous enforcement of whistleblower protection laws. Zuckerman drafted portions of the 2009 amendments to the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act, which is now the strongest public sector whistleblower protection statute at the state level, and testified at a hearing about those amendments. Zuckerman’s recommendations for improving OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program are cited in Congressional hearing testimony and a top-to-bottom review of the program, and comments that he co-authored are cited in final regulations implementing the whistleblower protection provisions of the Energy Reorganization Act and six environmental statutes. He also led a coalition of whistleblower advocates in meetings with the SEC Chairman, two other Commissioners and senior SEC staff to offer the whistleblower perspective on proposed regulations implementing the whistleblower reward provision of the Dodd-Frank Act. Zuckerman has drafted amicus curiae briefs in leading whistleblower retaliation cases, including Powers v. Union Pacific Railroad, Johnson v. Siemens, Bonds v. Leavitt, and Welch v. Chao, and his advice on whistleblower protections is cited in Financial Statement Fraud: Prevention and Detection and Nonprofit Financial Management: A Practical Guide.
Zuckerman serves as Co-Chair of the Whistleblower Subcommittee of the ABA Labor and Employment Section’s Employee Rights and Responsibilities Committee and served as Co-Chair of the National Employment Lawyers Association’s Whistleblower Committee, Co-Chair of the Sarbanes-Oxley Subcommittee of the ABA Labor and Employment Fair Labor Standards Legislation Committee, Co-Chair of the Whistleblower Committee of the District of Columbia Bar’s Labor and Employment Section, and member of Law 360’s Employment Editorial Advisory Board.
Zuckerman graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Georgetown University and received his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he served as Articles Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology. In law school, he received the University of Virginia School of Law’s Pro Bono Award for his advocacy on behalf of prison inmates and mentally disabled individuals and helped establish a successful pro bono program that encourages students to volunteer a minimum of 150 hours of pro bono service during law school.
