Rae Vann represents and advises employers on all major federal, state, and local employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act, the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Rae has more than 20 years of experience representing and advising corporate clients on workplace compliance matters. She provides counsel to businesses on mitigating individual and systemic discrimination risks, establishing effective alternative dispute resolution procedures, conducting thorough and effective workplace harassment and other misconduct investigations, and other labor and employment matters.
Her experience includes:
- Drafting memoranda analyzing significant employment-related developments within the judicial, executive, and legislative branches.
- Developing policies and procedures to ensure compliance with labor and employment law requirements.
- Conducting effective investigations of alleged unlawful harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
- Advising employers on defending charges of discrimination before the EEOC and state and local fair employment practices agencies.
- Advising federal contractors on OFCCP-enforced affirmative action obligations.
- Performing self-critical analyses and internal audits of employment policies and practices for clients.
Rae previously served for more than a decade as the senior vice president and general counsel of the Center for Workplace Compliance, the preeminent national employer association formerly known as the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC). There, she advocated for the development of sound workplace policy in the courts and before federal regulatory agencies, including authoring numerous amicus curiae briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. Rae also authored comments and testified before the U.S. Congress and the EEOC on a range of equal employment opportunity and workplace compliance matters.
As a member of the EEOC's Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, Rae helped guide development of a detailed set of recommendations to help employers prevent workplace harassment. The recommendations were released in June 2016, ahead of the international #MeToo movement.
Rae is a nationally recognized speaker and author on labor and employment issues. Her thought leadership has been featured in media including Bloomberg Law, Law360, National Law Journal, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, Politico, and Reuters.
