Labor and employment law is the law that governs the workplace—from worker organizing and collective bargaining to individual employment contracts and arbitration agreements, from problems of discrimination to questions of employee benefits.

Labor and employment law will take you from challenging philosophical questions about consent, power, and participation to policy debates about the minimum wage, discrimination, and automation. Its impact touches on far-ranging legal problems that overlap with constitutional law, administrative law, statutory interpretation, torts, and contracts. 

Work is everywhere, so expertise in labor and employment law is in high demand. As a labor and employment lawyer, you could work with major corporations, small businesses, nonprofits, labor unions, worker centers, individual employees, state and federal governments, and more.

Built on the work of renowned scholars like Theodore St. Antoine and legends of the bar like Judge Harry Edwards, Michigan Law offers a rich, diverse foundation in labor and employment law. That tradition continues today with groundbreaking Supreme Court victories in pregnancy discrimination cases to life-changing local unemployment insurance work in the era of COVID-19.

Whether you want to counsel the world’s biggest corporations on their labor and employment practices or advocate for economic justice and workers’ rights, you will find the academic rigor and practical experience you’ll need at Michigan Law. 

From clinics in workers’ rights (for first-year students) and human trafficking to courses on employee benefits and sports law, your education will prepare you for a career wrestling with complex domestic and international issues

 

Explore Labor and Employment Law

Workers’ Rights Clinic
Problem Solving Initiative
Human Trafficking Clinic
Externships
Clara Belfield and Henry Bates Overseas Fellowship
Michigan Immigration and Labor Law Association
Presidential Management Fellows Program

Featured Courses

Michigan Law courses include extensive doctrinal and clinical options. As a first-year student, you can choose from half a dozen electives focused on labor and employment law, from employment discrimination to labor law. Michigan Law also offers one of the only first-year clinics—the Workers’ Rights Clinic—in any law school in the United States. 

Later courses include topics such as unemployment insurance, disability rights, and collective bargaining. In addition to the Workers’ Rights Clinic and the Human Trafficking Clinic, we have several other clinics to choose from that touch on labor and employment law. The practical experience you will get working directly with clinical faculty and clients is invaluable to your career as a lawyer. 

Beyond the Law School, you can pursue a dual degree—obtaining an MBA or public policy degree along with your JD—or you can seek out externships as a student or fellowship funding after graduation.

See All Related Courses
Collective Bargaining and Arbitration
479
Impact of 9/11 on Int'l Law
Labor Law
699
Workers' Rights Clinic: Litigation
981

Faculty

Portrait of Elizabeth Anderson

Elizabeth Anderson

  • Professor of Law (courtesy)
Sam Bagenstos, Frank G. Millard Professor of Law

Samuel R. Bagenstos

  • Frank G. Millard Professor of Law
Portrait of Eric Baudry

Eric Baudry

  • Michigan Faculty Fellow
Ellen Katz, Professor of Law

Ellen D. Katz

  • Ralph W. Aigler Professor of Law
Sanjukta Paul

Sanjukta Paul

  • Professor of Law
JJ Prescott, Co-director, Empirical Legal Studies Center

JJ Prescott

  • Henry King Ransom Professor of Law
  • Co-director, Empirical Legal Studies Center
  • Co-director, Program in Law and Economics
  • Professor of Economics
David Santacroce, Clinical Professor of Law

David A. Santacroce

  • Clinical Professor of Law
  • Director, Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic
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Featured Scholarship

Cambridge Handbook of Labor in Competition Law

WWW
  • Intellectual Property and Antitrust
  • International and Comparative Law
  • Labor and Employment Law

"Charting the Reform Path"

Michigan Law Review
MLaw RepositoryWWW HEIN
  • Intellectual Property and Antitrust
  • Labor and Employment Law

Cases and Materials on Employment Discrimination and Employment Law: The Field as Practiced

  • Labor and Employment Law

"Plant Closings and Reductions in Force"

Employment Termination: Procedures, Grounds, and Challenges
MLaw Repository
  • Labor and Employment Law
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News

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Also of Interest

Administrative Law
Corporate and Securities Law
Human Rights