CHICAGO – Barnes & Thornburg is pleased to announce that Chicago partner Gray I. Mateo-Harris has received a National Bar Association 2019 40 Under 40 Nation's Best Advocates award. The award recognizes the nation’s top lawyers under 40 who demonstrate high achievement in the legal field, including in advocacy, innovation, vision, leadership and overall legal and community involvement.
Mateo-Harris is recognized for her exceptional legal acumen, outstanding pro bono work and for her tireless work advancing diversity and inclusion in the legal industry. Her client-driven and business-minded approach to helping clients achieve favorable results in the labor and employment matters she routinely manages is particularly noteworthy. She has provided pro bono legal representation to pro-se litigants, survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and nonprofit agencies. She is active on several legal community associations, including roles as conference planning committee chair of the NBA Labor & Employment Section, diversity and inclusion committee co-chair of the Women’s Coalition Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and board member of the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation. She previously served as a board member and hearing officer for the Cook County Sherriff’s Merit Board, committee chair and board member for Rape Victim Advocates and associate board chair of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms. In addition, she mentors associates new to the legal profession through a variety of organizations, including her alma mater, LegalTrek and the Diverse Attorney Pipeline Program.
At Barnes & Thornburg, Mateo-Harris is a member of the Labor & Employment Department and is integral to the firm’s diversity and inclusion efforts, having a track record of serving as an office diversity liaison, chair of black and Hispanic affinity groups and a member of women’s alliance groups.
She focuses her practice on labor and employment litigation in state and federal courts, administrative proceedings before government agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board and private arbitrations and mediations. She also advises clients on all aspects of the employment relationship, from onboarding to terminations, and traditional labor matters including union organizing campaigns. Gray also provides Spanish language representation to clients who wish to leverage her fluency.
The National Bar Association will honor the recipients on July 24, 2019, during its 93rd Annual Convention in New York. The National Bar Association is the nation’s oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges.
With more than 600 attorneys and other legal professionals, Barnes & Thornburg is one of the largest law firms in the country. The firm serves clients worldwide from 14 offices in Atlanta, California, Chicago, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minneapolis, Ohio, Texas and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit us online at www.btlaw.com or on Twitter @BTLawNews.
