Baruch A. Fellner, a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office, joined the firm in 1986 as a member of the Labor Department. He has extensive experience in federal civil litigation, including labor, pension, profit sharing, employee benefits and occupational health and safety.
In 1990, Mr. Fellner founded the Firm's occupational safety and health practice, which is recognized as one of the leading national OSHA practices especially in such areas as ergonomics litigation, challenges to OSHA regulations and OSHA fatality crisis management. Mr. Fellner's OSHA clients include UPS, Coke, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, General Electric Medical and Oldcastle Industries.
Mr. Fellner is also a leading attorney authority on data-driven medicine related to musculoskeletal disorders. He is the author or co-author of several related articles such as "Challenges in Regulating the Workplace to Prevent Musculoskeletal Disorders", 4 Bender's Labor & Employment Bulletin 1 (2004), analyzing the debate over mandatory ergonomics guidelines and identifying the fundamental problems raised by many of the proposals advanced to date.
Mr. Fellner served for eight years in the Solicitor's Office of the Department of Labor as counsel for both Appellate Litigation and Regional Litigation for the Occupational Safety and Health Division. In those capacities, he was in charge of all litigation before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and before the Courts of Appeals. Prior to assuming his responsibilities with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) division, he served in the appellate court branch of the National Labor Relations Board for more than four years. Throughout his career, Mr. Fellner has argued more than 75 cases in all of the courts of appeals, as well as numerous substantive motions in district courts throughout the nation.
Mr. Fellner formerly served as Associate General Counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal agency charged with administering the insurance program for all private defined benefit pension plans, where he was in charge of overseeing PBGC's litigation program. In that capacity, he coordinated the tactics and strategy of defending the constitutionality of the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, against 165 separate district court challenges, and argued Gray v. PBGC and PBGC v. Connolly before the Supreme Court of the United States, achieving unanimous decisions in both cases.
Mr. Fellner was ranked as one of the Top Twenty employment lawyers in the District of Columbia by Chambers USA - America's Leading Business Lawyers (2006 and 2005 editions), in which he is acknowledged for 'inspiring incredible client confidence' and his 'encyclopedic knowledge' of OSHA law. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America guide and 2007 SuperLawyers for Labor and Employment Law work. Mr. Fellner is the co-author of the first book dealing with occupational safety and health law, entitled "Occupational Safety and Health Law and Practice" (1975), and has authored numerous articles and addressed numerous audiences in the OSHA and pension fields.
After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the George Washington University in 1965, Mr. Fellner received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968.