Office Leadership

Front Office

Laura Huizar
Deputy Solicitor of Labor (Acting)
SOL Front Office

Stanley E. Keen
Deputy Solicitor for Regional Enforcement
SOL Front Office

After having served for two years as the Deputy Solicitor for National Operations, Stanley Keen is now the Deputy Solicitor for Regional Enforcement within the Office of the Solicitor. Prior to joining SOL’s Front Office in 2019, Mr. Keen was the Regional Solicitor in the Atlanta Regional Solicitor's Office from May 16, 2004 and served as the Acting Deputy Regional Solicitor and the Counsel for ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) Litigation.

Mr. Keen joined the Atlanta Regional Solicitor's Office in 1991. In his first 12 years as a trial attorney with the Department of Labor, he litigated and provided advice in most of the programs enforced by the Department. Notably, Mr. Keen litigated a series of OSHA cases relating to fall hazards on the Space Shuttle launch platforms at Kennedy Space Center; recovered over $14 million in losses to a pension plan sponsored by a Mississippi nursing company; litigated a number of cases intended to end H-2B and wage abuses in the crab-picking industry on the North Carolina coast; conducted the first District Court trial under ERISA involving a multiple-employer welfare arrangement (MEWA).

Before joining the Solicitor's Office, Mr. Keen served as a judicial clerk and worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where he assisted in the investigation of the Ohio bank failures in the 1980s.

Mr. Keen graduated from Emory University School of Law in 1987 and Emory University College in 1984.

Emily H. Su
Deputy Solicitor for National Operations
SOL Front Office

National Offices

Barry H. Joyner
Associate Solicitor
Black Lung and Longshore Legal Services

Barry H. Joyner has been the Associate Solicitor for the Black Lung and Longshore Legal Services Division (BLLLS) since March 2019. BLLLS provides legal services to the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) in connection with Black Lung Benefits Act and the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and its extensions. BLLLS’s work involves appellate litigation before the Department of Labor’s Benefits Review Board (BRB) and the federal courts of appeals, development and defense of regulations, and legal advice.

Mr. Joyner joined BLLLS’s predecessor, the Black Lung Division, as an appellate litigator in 1991. He successfully litigated numerous cases under both the Black Lung and Longshore Acts, and received the Solicitor’s Mary-Helen Mautner award for excellence in appellate litigation in 2014. He also helped OWCP develop regulations governing the payment of medical benefits and provided the agency with legal advice on numerous procedural, medical and technological issues. From 2017 to 2019, Mr. Joyner coordinated Appointments Clause litigation for the Black Lung and Longshore programs.

Prior to coming to the Solicitor’s Office, Mr. Joyner worked for the BRB from 1987 to 1991, as an attorney-advisor and Deputy Associate General Counsel. He was in private practice in Albuquerque, NM, from 1986 to 1987.

He received his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Mexico in 1983, and graduated from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1986.

Beverly Dankowitz
Associate Solicitor
Civil Rights & Labor-Management

Beverly Dankowitz has served as the Associate Solicitor for the Civil Rights and Labor-Management Division (CRLM) since May 2016. Prior to her appointment as Associate Solicitor, Ms. Dankowitz served as the Deputy Associate Solicitor for CRLM for five years. In this position, she oversees the Division within the Office of the Solicitor that provides legal services to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), Civil Rights Center (CRC), Women’s Bureau, Office of Disability Policy and to several other agencies on civil rights-related issues.

Ms. Dankowitz has been an attorney in CRLM and its predecessor, the Civil Rights Division, since 1985, serving as a trial attorney, Assistant Counsel, and Counsel. As Counsel for Litigation and Regional Coordination for 10 years, she supervised the division's enforcement-related activity under OFCCP’s laws, monitored OFCCP enforcement activity nation-wide and provided advice to OFCCP and the Regional Solicitors' Offices. She successfully resolved a number of systemic hiring discrimination cases, some in partnership with RSOL, oversaw administrative appeals that led to favorable final agency decisions, worked with DOJ successfully to defend final agency decisions and developed nation-wide procedures to strategically select cases for enforcement and improve the effectiveness of conciliation agreements.

Ms. Dankowitz received her J.D. from American University and her undergraduate degree from the University at Albany - SUNY.

Matthew Bernt
Associate Solicitor
Employment & Training Legal Services

Matthew Bernt is the Associate Solicitor for the Employment and Training Legal Services (ETLS) Division within the Office of the Solicitor. ETLS provides all manner of legal services to the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA), Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS), and Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB). From 2015 to 2018, Mr. Bernt served as the Counsel for Job Corps and Apprenticeship in ETLS, and from 2010 to 2015, he was a staff attorney in ETLS primarily providing legal advice to ETA in the administration of its employment and training programs. Mr. Bernt joined the Office of the Solicitor in 2008 through its Honors Attorney Program. Mr. Bernt received his J.D. from the Catholic University Columbus School of Law in 2008 and a B.A. in History from the College of William and Mary in 2005.

Jennifer S. Brand
Associate Solicitor
Fair Labor Standards

Jennifer Brand has been the Associate Solicitor of Labor for the Fair Labor Standards Division since March 2011. In this position, she oversees the National Office Division within the Office of the Solicitor which handles all matters involving the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Davis Bacon Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, other federal wage related statutes, and several whistleblower statutes. The Fair Labor Standards Division also acts as Counsel to the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor.

From May 2008 until March 2011, Ms. Brand was the Executive Director of the New York State Joint Enforcement Task Force on Employee Misclassification. Prior to joining the Task Force, Ms. Brand held the position of Chief of the Labor Bureau at the New York State Attorney General's Office. She had been employed in the Attorney General's Labor Bureau for nearly twenty years and had previously held the positions of Deputy Bureau Chief, General Labor Section Chief and Assistant Attorney General.

Ms. Brand is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law and of Barnard College, and she also holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Alexandra Tsiros
Associate Solicitor
Federal Employees' & Energy Workers' Compensation

Alexandra Tsiros is the Associate Solicitor for the Federal Employees’ and Energy Workers’ Compensation (FEEWC) Division. FEEWC provides support for the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs on issues related to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA), the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, and the War Hazards Compensation Act, and administers all subrogation claims under FECA. FEEWC also handles Federal Tort Claims Act and Military Personnel and Civilian Employees’ Claims Act claims. Prior to becoming the Associate Solicitor, Ms. Tsiros was the Deputy Associate Solicitor and the Subrogation Counsel in FEEWC. Ms. Tsiros joined the Office of the Solicitor in 1998 as a Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights division and later became a Counsel in that division. 

Ms. Tsiros was in private practice from 2007-2011 doing Equal Employment Opportunity advice and training and Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation.  

Ms. Tsiros received her J.D. from Duke University and her B.A., summa cum laude, in English from the Ohio State University.

David R. Koeppel
Associate Solicitor
Management and Administrative Legal Services

April Nelson
Associate Solicitor
Mine Safety and Health

April Nelson serves as the Associate Solicitor for the Mine Safety and Health (MSH) Division. Ms. Nelson joined DOL in 1998, working within the Division of Employment and Training Legal Services at SOL until 2003. During that time, one of Ms. Nelson's major clients was the Job Corps program; and among other things, Ms. Nelson helped Job Corps centers comply with HHS's 2000 Privacy Rule implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Ms. Nelson also assisted with a number of cost disallowance cases and other litigation and disputes regarding ETA grants, contracts and cooperative agreements. Ms. Nelson moved in 2003 to the Division of Management and Administrative Legal Services, where she served as the Counsel for Administrative Law until 2006. There, Ms. Nelson advised other Divisions regarding a wide variety of rulemaking and administrative law matters, and also was the Director for FOIA Appeals. In September of 2006, Ms. Nelson moved to serve as the Counsel for Standards and Legal Advice in the MSH Division. There, in the wake of three major mine disasters early in 2006 and the passage of the MINER Act in June of 2006, Ms. Nelson helped MSHA publish a number of final rules to improve mine safety and health. In December of 2016, Ms. Nelson was appointed Associate Solicitor for the MSH Division.

Ms. Nelson graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School with a J.D. in 1994 and from Wheaton College with a B.A. in psychology in 1990.

Vacant
Associate Solicitor
Office of Legal Counsel

Regional Offices

Maia Fisher
Regional Solicitor
Region I, Boston

Maia S. Fisher has served as the Regional Solicitor for Region I since September of 2018. She oversees civil trial litigation and legal advice and support for U.S. Department of Labor matters arising in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Previous, Ms. Fisher served almost a decade in the National Office Division of Black Lung and Longshore Legal Services. During her time as Associate Solicitor, Ms. Fisher led the Division’s litigation, regulation, legislation, and legal advice practices.

Prior to joining the Department of Labor, Ms. Fisher practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Ralph K. Winter of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and to Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida.

Ms. Fisher earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School.

Jeffrey S. Rogoff
Regional Solicitor
Region II, New York

Jeffrey Rogoff has served as the New York Regional Solicitor since 2014. He supervises the New York office, which oversees civil trial litigation and legal advice matters arising in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Notably the office has among the largest OSHA and Wage Hour practices in the Department while it maintains busy practices in ERISA, OFCCP, Whistleblower, and multiple other statutes.

Mr. Rogoff joined the New York Regional Solicitor’s Office in 2000. Before his appointment as Regional Solicitor, Mr. Rogoff served as Acting Regional Solicitor, Deputy Regional Solicitor, Senior Trial Attorney, and Attorney. As a trial attorney and senior trial attorney Mr. Rogoff litigated in all Departmental program areas, typically on some of the office’s highest profile and complex matters. Notably, Mr. Rogoff prevailed as lead counsel in a highly publicized OSHA trial relating to an employee fatality by trampling at a day-after-Thanksgiving sale.

Under Mr. Rogoff’s leadership, the New York office has experienced outstanding successes across all program areas. For example in the Wage Hour program, the office recovered more than $9.8 million in wages and penalties to over 1,500 employees at 17 restaurant locations throughout NY and NJ. In ERISA, following a 17-day trial, the office won a judgment for $9.485 million for trustees’ ESOP stock overvaluation. In OSHA, the office has obtained numerous national and regional corporate-wide settlements, covering hundreds of workplaces, to secure enhanced protections for thousands of employees from serious hazards such as moving machine parts, confined spaces, and obstructed emergency exits. In OFCCP, the office has litigated and helped negotiate multiple multi-dollar settlements, including two $9.8 million agreements in the finance industry and the largest OFCCP settlement with an academic institution to date.

Before joining the Solicitor’s office, Mr. Rogoff served as a judicial clerk in the Southern District of New York and litigated for six years at both small and large New York City law firms.

Mr. Rogoff received his law degree from New York University and bachelor’s degree from SUNY-Binghamton (Binghamton University).

Samantha N. Thomas
Regional Solicitor
Region III, Philadelphia

Samantha N. Thomas has been serving as Region III’s Acting Regional Solicitor since November 2022. Before her role as Acting RSOL, Ms. Thomas served as Region III’s Deputy Regional Solicitor. Ms. Thomas joined DOL in 2010 as a trial attorney in the Mine Safety and Health Backlog Litigation Project (MLBP) and became the Region’s INA Fraud Fund Attorney and H Coordinator two years later, litigating and coordinating the Region’s H-1B, H-2B, H-2A, and Fraud Fund (FLSA, SCA, and DBA) cases. In 2016 she became Wage and Hour Counsel in the Region III’s Arlington Branch Office and in 2017 she was promoted to the position of Arlington Associate Regional Solicitor. Under her leadership, Region III’s Arlington Branch Office recovered over 26 million dollars in back wages and civil money penalties in MSHA and Wage and Hour matters and successfully litigated more than 9 FLSA cases in federal district court, including a 14(c) jury trial.

Ms. Thomas was a 2020 recipient of the Arthur S. Flemming Award for legal achievement. The Flemming Award is the oldest public interest award for government workers. It honors outstanding federal employees, public servants, and excellence in government. Ms. Thomas received the award for her work on the Blackjewel case, where she led the Tri-Regional trial team and negotiated a settlement of over $5,967, 536 in back wages for 1,562 coal miners and other mine employees. Ms. Thomas’ mission driven leadership was the driving force that led to this nationally recognized recovery. Under her leadership as Acting Regional Solicitor, DOL successfully litigated Su v. East Penn Manufacturing Co. Civil Action No., 5:18-cv-001194, a FLSA matter, resulting in a $22 million recovery for worker.

Before joining the Solicitor’s Office, Ms. Thomas clerked for Magistrate Judge Timothy R. Rice in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Thomas has a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and Spanish Studies from American University, a Master’s Degree in International Affairs with a concentration on human rights and human trafficking from American University, and a J.D. from City University of New York Law School, where she was a Haywood Burns Fellow in Civil and Human Rights.

Tremelle I. Howard
Regional Solicitor
Region IV, Atlanta

Tremelle I. Howard was appointed on March 1, 2020, to serve as the Regional Solicitor for the Atlanta Regional Solicitor's Office. She leads the Atlanta Regional Solicitor’s Office and its branch office in Nashville with more than 50 staff members who are committed to providing legal support to Department of Labor agencies for matters arising in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. Prior to becoming the Regional Solicitor of Labor in Atlanta, Ms. Howard served as the Deputy Regional Solicitor, Counsel for MSHA and a trial attorney.

As Deputy Regional Solicitor for four years, she had direct oversight of administrative and financial operations. She also supervised all Internal Labor Relations and FOIA matters initiated in the eight states serviced by the Regional Office. As MSHA Counsel, Ms. Howard supervised complex mine and safety litigation. She also worked closely with the MSHA Backlog team leveraging the additional staff to ensure global resolutions were obtained wherever possible. Before serving as MSHA Counsel, Ms. Howard served as a trial attorney for three years and she litigated in all program areas.

Prior to joining the Solicitor's Office, Ms. Howard worked in local government and private practice. She is proudest of her accomplishments after her clerkship as an Assistant and Deputy Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia where she practiced Civil Rights and Labor and Employment Law. There, Ms. Howard litigated more than a dozen federal jury trials honing her trial and advocacy skills which inform much of her litigation practice and strategy today.

Ms. Howard is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and University of Maryland. She also clerked for the Honorable Doris A. Smith-Ribner, Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Christine Heri
Regional Solicitor
Region V, Chicago

Christine Heri was appointed on January 14, 2013, to serve as the Regional Solicitor for the Chicago Regional Solicitor's Office. Prior to becoming the Regional Solicitor of Labor in Chicago, Ms. Heri served as the Chicago Counsel for ERISA for three years, where she had direct oversight of all ERISA litigation developed and initiated in the ten states serviced by the Regional Office.

Prior to serving as Counsel for ERISA, Ms. Heri was a Senior Trial Attorney for seven years beginning in 2004. In that position, she represented the Secretary of Labor in significant and complex enforcement matters in U.S. District Court and U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Ms. Heri provided legal advice and analysis to federal agency clients regarding novel issues under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), the Bankruptcy Code and other statutes enforced by the Department of Labor.

For 13 years, Ms. Heri served as a Trial Attorney in the Regional Solicitor's Office, litigating cases under ERISA, USERRA, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the Bankruptcy Code and other statutes enforced by the Department of Labor.

Before joining the Solicitor's Office, Ms. Heri worked as an Investigator for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), investigating and enforcing the pension and welfare benefits laws under ERISA.

Ms. Heri graduated from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1990 and from Augustana College in 1987.

John Rainwater
Regional Solicitor
Region VI, Dallas

John Rainwater was appointed Regional Solicitor in Dallas, Texas on January 19, 2020. The Dallas region includes a branch office in Denver, Colorado. The Dallas and Denver offices have approximately 50 attorneys and staff who handle all DOL legal matters in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain states including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Prior to becoming Regional Solicitor, Mr. Rainwater served as Associate Regional Solicitor in Denver from 2008-2020 during which time he played a key role in the formation of the MSHA Litigation Backlog Project. Mr. Rainwater served as an SOL staff attorney in Denver and Washington, D.C. from 1999-2008 handling many OSHA, MSHA, Wage and Hour, and OFCCP litigation matters.

Mr. Rainwater graduated from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1997. That same year, he earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. He graduated in 1991 from Saint John’s University with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. A native of Oklahoma, Mr. Rainwater is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.

Marc A. Pilotin
Regional Solicitor
Region IX, San Francisco

Marc A. Pilotin has served as the Regional Solicitor for Region IX since January 2022. He oversees civil trial litigation and provides legal advice and support for U.S. Department of Labor matters arising in Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, California, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. He previously served as Counsel for Wage and Hour Litigation and as a Trial Attorney in Region IX.

Before becoming Regional Solicitor, Mr. Pilotin was the General Counsel of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), the state agency that combats wage theft, ensures workplace health and safety, and administers various worker benefit programs. As General Counsel, he oversaw the LWDA’s legal affairs, which included prosecuting workers’ rights violations, defending California’s workplace standards, and various rulemaking actions.

Previously, Mr. Pilotin litigated employment and antitrust class actions at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. He was a law clerk to United States District Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California. In the community, he has served as president of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California and as chair of the Oakland Public Ethics Commission.

Mr. Pilotin graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he has been a lecturer. He has a Master of Education degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA.