Biography

Brenda H. Feis has been a partner with the law firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP in Chicago since 1993.  Ms. Feis is engaged in a broad based employment law practice, with emphasis on complex employment litigation and sexual harassment.  She has handled virtually every type of discrimination case at either the federal, state, or agency level, including sexual harassment, race, sex, pregnancy, disability, religion, age, national origin, retaliation and veterans’ status. Ms. Feis represented the Hooters restaurant chain in a highly publicized nationwide class action challenge to the restaurant’s female-only hiring policy.  She also succeeded, in a case of first impression, in obtaining the dismissal of all nationwide class claims in a reverse hiring discrimination case against Jillian’s Entertainment Corp.  Ms. Feis successfully tried the first sexual harassment case to a jury after juries were authorized in Title VII cases upon the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Ms. Feis is a frequent lecturer on employment law issues, particularly sexual harassment, and has served as defense counsel in mock sexual harassment jury trials in numerous educational programs, including the ABA National Institute on Sexual Harassment and others.  Her most recent national lectures in this area include presentations on “Changes in the Law Since Ellerth and Faragher,” “Jury Trials In Sexual Harassment Cases” (ABA Equal Employment Opportunity Committee annual meeting), “The Use of Psychological Experts in Sexual Harassment Litigation” (ABA National Institute on Sexual Harassment), and “Responding to Agency Investigations” (ABA NISH). Ms. Feis was a principal collaborator on Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s national sexual harassment video training program, “At Issue.” She also co-authored IICLE’s Sexual Harassment Policy Guidelines.  In 1996, Ms. Feis was named in Illinois Legal Times as one of the “Top 15 Rising Star Litigators” in Chicago.  In 2007, Ms. Feis was named as an Illinois Leading Lawyer in the field of Employment Law: Management.

Education

J.D., Duke University School of Law, Durham, North Carolina (1985)

Editorial Board, Duke Law Journal

B.A., Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (1982)

summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa

Admissions

• Illinois

Courts

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois
• Trial Bar, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois