Jon is a shareholder and director at Wickens Herzer Panza, in Avon, Ohio. In that capacity, he is the Practice Group Leader of the firm's Employment & Labor Practice Group, and a member of the Firm's Litigation Department. 

He focuses his practice on management-side labor and employment law, providing businesses proactive solutions to solve their workforce problems and reactive solutions when they find themselves litigating against an employee or group of employees.

Proactively, he serves as outside in-house counsel for businesses. He is the voice on the other end of a phone when a business needs advice on firing an employee, a policy or agreement drafted, guidance on a leave of absence, disability accommodation, or internal complaint or investigation, or information on any number of other issues that plague human resources professionals and businesses daily. He also has extensive experience on more specialized labor and employment law issues, wage and hour compliance, social media, cybersecurity, and other workplace technology concerns, affirmative action compliance, OSHA and workplace health and safety (including Covid-19), and union avoidance and labor relations. 

Reactively, he represents businesses in employment and labor litigation, including discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and wrongful discharge claims, non-competition and trade-secret misappropriation disputes, wage-and-hour class and collective actions, and union certification and decertification matters.

 

He is also one of the co-founders and co-practice group leaders of the Wicken Herzer Panza's Craft Beer practice. In that capacity, he helps brewers, brew pubs and restaurants, and businesses that serve the craft beer industry navigate their specialized business, legal, and regulatory issues.

 

He is an in-demand author and speaker on myriad employment-related issues, most recently presenting multiple seminars on social media and employment law, and other presentations on the ADA, the FMLA, workplace technology, and harassment. He is a frequent resource for the local and national media on employment law issues, including the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Fox News, NPR, National Law Journal, Business Insurance Magazine, Crain’s Cleveland Business, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He has also appeared as a frequent guest on WCPN’s The Sound of Ideas. 

 

His most recent book, The Employer Bill of Rights: A Manager’s Guide to Workplace Law, is a practical handbook designed to help business owners and managers navigate the ever-changing maze of labor and employment laws, rules, and regulations.

In addition to this blog, he also comments on current labor and employment law issues on:

• LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhyman)

• Twitter (@jonhyman);

• Facebook (www.facebook.com/ohio.employer.law.blog)

Super Lawyers named him an Ohio Rising Star in the area of Employment Law for 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013, and a Super Lawyer for 2016 – 2022.

He is a 1997 graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a 1994 graduate of Binghamton University, both with honors.

He is a co-host of The Norah and Dad Show, a weekly podcast his teenage daughter and he started as a means to bond and to discuss what's happening in our lives.

He appeared on a November 2009 edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but, sadly, did not have the fastest fingers.

Finally, when he’s not working as a lawyer saving employers, he’s working as a roadie for his kids’ aspiring rock ‘n’ roll careers.