Anne Larson is a Shareholder in the Chicago office of Ogletree Deakins. Anne makes it her business to fully understand the client’s operations and personnel, so she can provide exceptional client service tailored to client needs and goals.

Anne concentrates her practice on management-side labor and employment matters and tries discrimination, breach of contract and non-competition/trade secrets disputes throughout the country. She handles unfair labor practice proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board and discrimination charges before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and multiple state commissions.

Anne directs targeted FLSA compliance audits of exempt v. non-exempt employee classifications. She focuses on litigation prevention when advising businesses on their hiring and firing practices, reductions-in-force, disability accommodations and social media issues. Anne creatively negotiates executive compensation and severance agreements and drafts employee handbooks, independent contractor and non-competition agreements. She uses her flair for the theatrical to engage employees with interactive anti-harassment training.

Anne is a member and former Co-Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee – Investigative Division. She has taught the ADA section of the Mental Health and the Law seminar at Northwestern University Law School and writes on recent developments in labor and employment law. Anne was the featured speaker on “Escalating Retaliation Claims in the Workplace” during the National Employment Law Institute’s (NELI) 35th Annual Employment Discrimination Law Update in Chicago in July 2011. Recently, she authored “Think Before You Tweet: When Workplace Gripes Play Out in Social Media, Who Pays?” (Today’s Chicago Woman (TCW), July 2011), “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” (TCW, May 2011) and “What the FMLA Regulations Don’t Tell Employers: Your Attendance or Sick Time Policies May Buy You a Lawsuit (Corporate Counsel, Nov. 2010).

Anne was named one of the “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch” in 2001 by the Law Bulletin Publishing Company, an honor bestowed on only 40 Illinois attorneys each year. Her peers named her an Illinois Super Lawyer in 2005, 2007 and 2012, an honor given to the top 5% of attorneys in the state. Leading Lawyers Network has recognized Anne as a top Illinois lawyer in the area of management-side employment law from 2007 through 2011.

Personally, Anne has a passion for the arts and has been civically active through service on not-for-profit boards and community organizations for more than 15 years. She has served as President of the Board for both Shattered Globe Theatre and Hedwig Dances. She has also served as Co-Chair of the Chicago Community Trust’s Young Leaders Fund (YLF), an organization that seeks out and makes grants to local not-for-profits dedicated to the arts, children and economic redevelopment. This past year, Anne taught constitutional law to students in Chicago Area Schools as part of the CFRC’s “Lawyers in the Classroom” program.

In her spare time, Anne may be found cycling the lakefront with her family, planting thousands of tulip bulbs in her postage stamp-size front yard or doing an exercise “boot camp” near the statute of Benjamin Franklin in Lincoln Park. She hopes to become fit enough to do the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI).

Anne served as Law Clerk to the Honorable George W. Lindberg, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and participated in several high-profile criminal prosecutions while clerking.