Gail Schnitzer Eisenberg leads our growing
employment practice and focuses her practice on employees’ rights. She
approaches each matter with a pragmatic, empathetic lens rooted in legal
analysis. Gail assists clients in a range of employment disputes related to
race, gender, and other forms of workplace discrimination, harassment, and
retaliation. Gail has experience with all phases of litigation and
administrative proceedings as well as employment contracts, training, handbooks,
and severance agreements.
Gail was
appointed 2021-2023 chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Labor and Employment
Committee and to the 2023 Nominating Committee. Gail Eisenberg elected Second
Vice President of the National Employment Lawyers Association – Illinois for
2024, in addition to continuing her role as co-chair of the Legislative
Committee.
The American Bar
Association named Gail to its 2021 Top 40 Lawyers On the Rise list, which
recognizes young lawyers who exemplify a broad range of high achievement,
innovation, vision, leadership, and legal and community service. In 2022, the
ABA of Labor & Employment Law Section awarded Gail a two-year Young Lawyers
Division Fellowship, and the American Bar Foundation elected Gail to the ABF
Fellows, a global honorary society for those who have demonstrated outstanding
dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare
of their communities, membership to which is limited to 1% of licensed lawyers
in each jurisdiction.
Leading Lawyers
has named Gail an Emerging Lawyer in Employment Law, and Super Lawyers named
Gail as an Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star in Employment Litigation every
year since 2017, one of less than 2.5% of Illinois attorneys under the age of 40
given that distinction. She had previously been named a Rising Star in Class
Action litigation. Gail was also named to the 2015 Chicago Jewish 36 Under 36
List by the Jewish United Fund.
Gail is active
in the community. In 2021, the residents of New Trier Township in the northern
suburbs of Chicago elected Gail Township Supervisor after completing a four-year
term as trustee, in which position she oversees the communities social safety
net and social service programs. Gail also currently sits on the Administrative
and Government Affairs Committees of the Jewish United Fund, co-chairs the
Legislative Committee of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers, serves on the Quality
Jobs Council for Women Employed, on her synagogue’s board, as a Girl Scout Troop
Leader, and on the Triage Cancer Legal Advisory Council. She is passionate about
fighting prematurity and was selected to the inaugural class of Gretchen Carlson
March of Dimes Advocacy Fellows in 2018 and now serves on the March of Dimes’
North Suburban Leadership Council and Illinois Government Affairs
Committee.
Before joining
Loftus and Eisenberg, Gail practiced employees’ civil rights law at Stowell
& Friedman, Ltd., which was named the top law firm for employee rights and
race discrimination matters by the National Law Journal. Before that, Gail
worked as a Managing Associate at Dentons’ Litigation and Dispute Resolution
practice, where she focused on class action defense and other complex litigation
primarily in the insurance, financial services, gaming, and media industries.
Gail emphasizes pro bono service volunteering legal services with the Domestic
Violence Legal Clinic, ACLU of Illinois, the National Immigrant Justice Center,
and Equip for Equality. She also has worked directly with children through the
Girl Scouts Legal Track and the Constitutional Rights Foundation’s Lawyers in
the Classroom Project.
Gail began her
legal career as a Staff Law Clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit, where she worked on criminal and civil appeals as well as requests for
leave to appeal the denial of petitions for habeas corpus. Gail also taught
Appellate Advocacy at Loyola University Chicago School of
Law.
During law
school, Gail served as a judicial extern for the Hon. Joan Humphrey Lefkow for
the Northern District of Illinois and as a Civil Procedure teaching assistant
for Prof. Ron Allen. She also served as a Legal Extern at the United States
Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois, and as a Civil Appeals
Division Law Clerk at the Office of the Attorney General of Illinois Lisa
Madigan. Gail represented clients in immigration proceedings as a part of the
Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern Law,
served as the Symposium Editor of the Journal of Law & Social Policy, and on
the Miner Moot Court Board. Prior to attending law school, Gail served as a
Civic Leadership Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League of Greater Chicago/Upper
Midwest Region.