Mary E. Kelly is a partner in the law firm of Livingston, Adler, Pulda, Meiklejohn & Kelly. Mary’s father Paul Kelly was an organizer for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, while her mother Karen was a feminist who worked as a bookkeeper in a law firm. Mary contends that given this pedigree it was inevitable that she would become a labor and employment lawyer.
Mary received her B.A. from the University of Connecticut, and received her J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1989. She has been an attorney practicing with LAPM&K since 1989, and has been a partner in the firm since 1996. In addition to representing employees with respect to claims involving discrimination and retaliation, she has represented employees with respect to claims involving first amendment activity, breach of contract, invasion of privacy, and other tort claims. She regularly represents employees in Connecticut State and Federal Court, the Department of Labor, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
Mary has been an active member of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) since 1998, and is currently a member of NELA’s Judicial Oversight Committee. Mary currently serves on the Connecticut Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Executive Committee and is the Co-Chair of the Employment Discrimination Sub-Committee. She is also is a former president, and current active member, of the Connecticut Employment Lawyers Association. Mary has written and spoken extensively on issues involving discrimination and retaliation. Most recently, Mary was pleased to be able to speak about the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act at both the NELA National Convention, and the AFL-CIO Lawyers Co-ordinating Committee’s National Convention. Mary also regularly speaks to plaintiff-side employment lawyers about litigation strategy, including how to survive summary judgment motions and how to conduct successful discovery.
One of Mary’s most rewarding experiences was working with partner Gregg Adler on cases involving representation of the International Association of Machinists in 2000 and again in 2010. In both cases, Mary and Gregg successfully litigated for federal injunctions preventing UTC from moving hundreds of bargaining unit jobs out of Connecticut. Mary is also very proud of her work in the case of Campbell v. Windham Community Memorial Hosp., Inc., 389 F.Supp.2d 370 (D. Conn. Aug 26, 2005), in which the Connecticut District Court found that since employees have a right to dispute information contained in their personnel files, a wrongful discharge claim could be brought by an employee allegedly terminated for submitting a written statement disagreeing with an evaluation.
Every year since 2006, Mary has been named by the publication Super Lawyers as among the Top Attorneys in Connecticut in the Employment & Labor category, as well as among the Top Attorneys in New England in the Employment & Labor category. Mary’s feelings about her practice are best summed up by the following words by Eleanor Roosevelt:
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world
