For over 40 years, Judy Scott has held key labor law positions in a wide range of unions in both the private and public sectors, having served as in-house legal counsel to the United Auto Workers, AFSCME, United Mine Workers, and Teamsters (as its General Counsel). Between 1997-2016, Ms. Scott served as general counsel to the SEIU, the largest private sector union in the United States. Her career has included Big Three auto talks, the 1989 historic United Mine Worker victory at Pittston Coal Company, extensive internal union governance, arbitration and litigation matters, innovative global campaigns and most recently, creative organizing strategies in the healthcare, property services and public sectors, with particular emphasis on the national challenge to end growing income inequality and address obstacles facing individuals working outside traditional labor law protections. Ms. Scott has lectured widely on labor law matters, including being selected for the Henry Kaiser lecture at Georgetown University School of Law and the Robert Preiskel and Leon Silverman Program on the Practicing Lawyer and Public Interest at Yale Law School.
In addition, Ms. Scott has given special attention to issues affecting women workers, beginning with her work on the implementation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act amendment in 1979 auto negotiations. For many years, she served on the Board of the National Partnership for Women and Families. She was the legislative representative for the former Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO, advocating on Capitol Hill for labor, civil rights and social justice issues. Ms. Scott also is co-author of the widely used book, Organizing and the Law. During the Clinton years, she served as a Presidential appointee on the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Recently she completed a three year term as Union chair of the ABA International Labor and Employment Law Committee. Ms. Scott also served on the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society.
Ms. Scott graduated from Wellesley College (BA) in 1971 and holds a law degree from Northeastern University School of Law (JD, 1974). Before attending law school Ms. Scott worked for the Frontier Nursing Service in Hyden, Kentucky.
Ms. Scott is admitted to the bars of Washington State and the District of Columbia. She is admitted to practice before numerous courts, including the US Supreme Court and various US Courts of Appeals.
Ms. Scott was honored as the 2015 Woman Lawyer of the Year by the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia. In 2016, the American Bar Association, the nation’s largest organization of attorneys, named Judy Scott as one of 5 honorees for its prestigious Margaret Brent Awards. She was honored as the 2016 Beth Shulman Fellow by the National Employment Law Project. Ms. Scott was listed on Lawdragon's 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers from 2021 - 2024.
