Bio

Susan Childers North is co-managing partner of the firm's Richmond and Williamsburg offices. Her practice includes counseling, mediation, arbitration and litigation of a variety of employment issues, including sexual harassment, race and sex discrimination, age discrimination and disability discrimination, wage and hour claims, as well as covenants not to compete, non-disclosure agreements, business conspiracy and trade secrets. Ms. North also is experienced in defending complex, multiple-plaintiff and pattern and practice cases, including successfully defeating Title VII and 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 class action discrimination cases and wage and hour collective action cases under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ms. North has represented food and beverage clients, including Nestle Dreyer's Ice Cream, Nespresso, USA, Ballast Point Brewing Company, and M. Price Distributing Co., regarding employment discrimination claims, wage and hour claims, trade secrets and covenants not to compete, Family Medical Leave Act matters, background checks, affirmative action and state by state compliance issues. She has also performed various training seminars on a variety of employment law topics to management level employees and to the general workforce. In addition, Ms. North counsels employers, credit reporting agencies, furnishers of information to credit reporting agencies and debt collectors on compliance issues related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Ms. North litigates these claims as well. Ms. North also spends much of her time counseling retail, food and beverage and healthcare clients to avoid litigation by utilizing appropriate anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies and procedures, affirmative action compliance policies, executive employment contracts containing covenants not to compete, non-solicitation and confidentiality provisions and employee handbooks and training regarding all of the above. Ms. North also provides diversity management, counseling, and training to employers. This involves conducting assessments/audits, developing and implementing diversity plans and conducting training and counseling on diversity issues. Before going to law school, Ms. North worked as an Equal Employment Opportunity Analyst for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She also maintained her own human resources consulting business, working with clients regarding wage and hour and discrimination issues. Her current clients include mostly retail, food and beverage and healthcare clients with nationwide operations. Ms. North has been selected as one of Virginia’s Top 50 Women Attorneys in 2012 – 2014, 2016, and 2018. She also has been selected as a Virginia Rising Star or Super Lawyer from 2006 – 2011 and has been named one of Virginia’s “Legal Elite” in Labor and Employment Law every year since 2004. She presented at the Virginia State Bar Association’s 117th Annual Meeting in January 2007 on “Learning to Think and React Like a Seasoned Employment Lawyer” and at the Virginia Bar Association’s Employment Law Conference in September 2011 on the “Fair Credit Reporting Act: Friend or Foe.” Ms. North also has been appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court as a faculty member of the Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Course and the I’Anson-Hoffman American Inn of Court XXVII, and she is actively involved in Virginia’s Asian Pacific American Bar Association.