Leah M. Stiegler

Leah can walk employers through any workplace situation. From complex personnel matters, to implementing client-specific performance management practices, Leah advises employers to navigate these issues to keep them out of court. Her counseling covers the entire employment spectrum: recruitment, onboarding, workplace culture, pay equity audits, RIFs, terminations and severance packages.

Leah handles workplace investigations and defends actions before administrative agencies such as the EEOC, DOL, and NLRB. Leah has extensive litigation experience, defending employers in state and federal court on claims including but not limited to:

• Breach of employment agreements
• Harassment, discrimination, and retaliation (Title VII)
• Whistleblower complaints
• ADA or religious-based failure to accommodate claims
• FMLA non-compliance
• Workplace violence and negligent supervision
• FLSA unpaid overtime, misclassification and off-the-clock claims
• Workplace safety, OSHA, or VOSH actions

Leah also represents employers navigating union issues, labor relations arbitrations and collective bargaining. Every workforce loves Leah's dynamic public speaking style. Having traveled the Mid-Atlantic to train front-line employees, upper management, HR and other industry professionals, Leah creates custom workforce training programs with her team and has fun doing it!

Leah also maintains a higher education practice. She provides day-to-day compliance advice to public and private higher ed institutions on employment and student-related matters. These include navigating Title VII, Title IX, and code of conduct investigations, faculty, administrative, and athletic coach contracts and severance packages, tenure and promotion processes, and pay equity audits. Leah also trains school leadership, such as Deans and Chairs, on improving documentation and engaging in performance management of faculty.

To see Leah in action, check out What's the Tea in L&E!

Recognition

Clerkships

Federal Judicial Clerkship, Eastern District of Virginia

Education

University of Richmond School of Law, J.D., cum laude, Order of the Coif

Virginia Tech, B.A., B.S., summa cum laude

Admissions

Virginia

U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Virginia

U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. District Court, Western District of Virginia

U.S. Supreme Court

Languages

• Federal Judicial Clerkship, Eastern District of Virginia
• Federal Bar Association
• Virginia Bar Association
• YWCA's Young Women’s Leadership Alliance

Multimedia

• Co-author. “Employment: North America, USA – Virginia.” Lexology Getting the Deal Through, September 19, 2023.
• Co-author. “Employment: North America, USA – Virginia.” Lexology Getting the Deal Through, October 17, 2022.
• “Life happens at work. Are your employees discussing the George Floyd tragedy?” The Roanoke Times, June 5, 2020.
• “Speak the Unspoken: Fighting Your Implicit Bias and Channeling Understanding.” Opening Statement, Fall 2019.
• “Subconscious Thoughts and Their Impact on the Workplace.” Lynchburg Business, November/December 2018.
• “Avoiding The Catch-22: Reforming the Renewable Fuel Standard to Protect Freshwater Resources and Promote Energy Independence.” University of Richmond Law Review, 2014.