Leigh Nason is a shareholder in the Columbia, South Carolina office of Ogletree Deakins and co-chairs the firm’s OFCCP Compliance, Government Contracting, and Reporting Practice Group, whose experienced attorneys counsel and defend federal contractors and subcontractors throughout the United States on jurisdictional, compliance, and enforcement issues involving the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).
Leigh provides advice to in-house counsel and human resources professionals in all industries on the preparation, management, and defense of their affirmative action programs and related matters, including jurisdictional analyses, preventative strategies, complaint investigations, and compliance evaluations. She is often retained to assist with OFCCP systemic discrimination cases stemming from statistical disparities in hiring, pay, and testing and has successfully defended allegations of significant monetary liability and other sanctions in every OFCCP region. She advises small and large employers throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands on proactive pay equity analyses, defensible diversity and inclusion strategies and data analytics, and strategic EEO-1/VETS reporting. An experienced litigator, Leigh has defended discrimination claims before federal and state courts as well as administrative tribunals.
Leigh has been included in The Best Lawyers in America for many years. She received the 2018 Distinguished Lawyer Award from the South Carolina Bar’s Employment and Labor Law Section and was selected as the 2017 Employment Law-Management Lawyer of the Year for Columbia, SC. She is listed in Chambers USA as one of the country’s leading attorneys in the affirmative action compliance arena, has been designated as a South Carolina “Super Lawyer,” is AV® Rated by Martindale-Hubbell, and has been recommended in the United States edition of The Legal 500 in the category of Workplace and Employment Counseling. Leigh has authored and edited numerous publications on affirmative action compliance issues and is an editor of and contributing author to all five editions of Labor and Employment Law for South Carolina Lawyers, published by the South Carolina Bar. Leigh is often asked by national media for her insights on new developments affecting federal contractors and is a frequent speaker at national, regional, and local conferences on affirmative action compliance and employment discrimination.
Leigh is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina School of Law, and is certified by the South Carolina Supreme Court as a specialist in the area of employment and labor law. She served as Chair of the South Carolina Bar’s Labor and Employment Law Committee and its Employment and Labor Law Specialization Advisory Board.
