Eric J. Conn

Conn Maciel Carey LLP is a boutique employment and workplace safety law firm founded on the principle that specialised, strategic counsel serves employers better than generalist advice. Founding partner Eric J. Conn chairs the firm's national OSHA and Workplace Safety Practice Group, a team he built into one of the most recognised of its kind in the United States. The firm has been named Health & Safety Law Firm of the Year in Washington DC, US, at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025, recognising a practice that has become a leading destination for employers navigating occupational safety and health regulation.

The firm's work sits at the intersection of regulation, litigation and day-to-day workplace management. Its lawyers advise employers across the full spectrum of Occupational Safety and Health Administration matters, from compliance counselling and inspection response through to the defence of citations and contested enforcement proceedings. That safety practice is complemented by mine safety work before the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and by a broader labour and employment offering that spans workplace litigation, wage and hour disputes, ADA accessibility, and workplace violence prevention, allowing clients to draw on a single team for the interlocking legal questions that a serious safety incident can raise. Occupational safety and health law is a demanding and fast-moving field in which evolving federal standards, vigorous enforcement and the prospect of substantial penalties place a premium on specialist counsel, since employers must manage not only the rules themselves but the practical realities of inspections, recordkeeping obligations and the reputational consequences of a serious workplace event.

Eric Conn's philosophy anchors the firm's approach. He is associated with a pragmatic, reasoned stance that seeks cooperative resolutions with regulators where they are available and mounts a vigorous defence where they are not. This emphasis on balancing risk, cost and principle reflects an understanding that employers value predictability and commercial judgement as much as courtroom advocacy, and that the relationships a firm maintains with regulators can be as valuable to a client as its litigation record.

The strength of the practice is borne out by external recognition. Conn Maciel Carey has been ranked in the top band nationally for occupational safety and health law by Chambers USA across several consecutive years, a placement that reflects both the depth of its bench and the volume of complex matters it handles. Operating from a network of offices across the United States, the firm combines the responsiveness of a focused boutique with the geographic reach needed to support multi-site employers facing federal and state safety regimes.

Its client base is drawn from the ranks of employers for whom workplace safety is a core operational and reputational concern, including manufacturers, construction firms and other businesses operating in heavily regulated environments. For these organisations, the firm offers not only reactive defence but proactive guidance designed to reduce exposure before an inspection or incident occurs. Recognition as Health & Safety Law Firm of the Year in Washington DC, US, at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025 underscores the standing that Eric Conn and his colleagues have established as trusted advisers to employers on the safety and health issues that increasingly shape modern workplaces.