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Sherin and Lodgen partner Nancy S. Shilepsky named to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Hall of Fame

Sherin and Lodgen is pleased to announce that Employment Department partner Nancy S. Shilepsky has been named to the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly inaugural Hall of Fame for her contributions to the development of the law, her contributions to the bar, and her efforts to improve the quality of justice in Massachusetts.

Nancy has been a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers for over twenty years with an internationally recognized practice representing primarily executives and professionals across a wide range of industries. She is known and well-regarded for her pioneering work in executive advocacy and for her profound contributions to the development of wrongful termination and employment discrimination law.

She gained recognition with high-profile litigation matters, including rebuffing a First Amendment challenge to the laws against sexual harassment in the workplace and a landmark case dealing with the eradication of race-based discrimination in compensation, and with her prolific and influential writings and lectures on employment law topics. Nancy’s first book, Representing a Plaintiff in an Unjust Dismissal Case, originally published in 1993, has been revised and re-published several times, and remains in circulation today.  Nancy served for many years as chair of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education’s Employment Law Curriculum Advisory Committee, from which organization she received the Scholar-Mentor Award in 2009.

Mentorship, especially of up-and-coming women lawyers, is a keystone of Nancy’s career.  Her formal contributions include serving as a founding co-chair of the Women’s Bar Association’s Women’s Leadership Initiative in 2008 and continuing as a mentor in that program through 2012. Currently, she chairs Sherin and Lodgen’s Women’s Initiative and will be a mentor in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers First Circuit Mentoring Pilot Program. The ranks of current leaders of the Massachusetts employment bar evidence the impact of her less formal mentoring.

As a leader in the Massachusetts bar, Nancy has served as an executive committee member and treasurer of the Boston Bar Association, on the finance committee of the Massachusetts Bar Association, as chair of the Boston Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section, and as chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section. Internationally, she served as co-chair of the International Committee of the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section and, currently, as co-chair of that Section’s Outreach to International Lawyers Committee.

In 2004, Nancy co-founded the Amicus Group which she continues to co-facilitate and which demonstrates her efforts to improve the quality of justice in Massachusetts. In the almost twenty years since its founding, the Amicus Group has pursued racial and social justice by facilitating the drafting and filing of amicus briefs on behalf of numerous civil rights organizations and community groups such as the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute and Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action.  Nancy has been a member of the advisory committees of Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action and, in 2008, was appointed by then Governor Deval Patrick to serve on the Advisory Committee of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Nancy’s many accolades include the Massachusetts Bar and Massachusetts Lesbian & Gay Bar Associations Kevin Larkin Memorial Award for Public Service, the Boston University School of Law Women’s Law Association Alumnae Award, being honored by Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, and a special award from the Northeast Coalition of Educational Leaders. Her accolades also include being identified by National Law Journal as one of the most influential lawyers in Massachusetts, being named by Thomson Reuters as a Massachusetts “Super Lawyers,” being included in several “Lawdragon 500” lists, and repeatedly receiving Chambers USA’s highest ranking. Nancy has been named a Lawyer of the Year and Top Woman Lawyer of the Year by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, has been featured in its Power Issue and, in 2015, named to its “Circle of Excellence.”