Janeen Olsen Dougherty is a founding member of Grey Street Legal, LLC, a law firm based in Exton, PA, representing corporate clients and business executives on a wide variety of transactional, employment and commercial matters. Ms. Dougherty actively litigates employment matters in federal and state courts and has extensive experience in handling discrimination, harassment, retaliation, employment-related libel and slander, breach of contract, noncompetition, trade secret and other employment claims.

In her current practice, Ms. Dougherty regularly counsels clients in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York on the potential liability arising from each facet of the employment relationship, from the applicant interview to post-employment communications. She represents employers before the EEOC on a multitude of individual and systemic discrimination claims, conducts investigations and management training, drafts employment contracts and separation agreements, and counsels businesses in order to ensure that their policies and practices are in compliance with employment laws and regulations.

Ms. Dougherty previously served as Associate General Counsel for Airgas, Inc., a public company having more than 14,000 employees. In that role, Ms. Dougherty was responsible for providing employment counseling, conducting workplace investigations, developing policy and managing all employment litigation across twenty (20) operating companies. Ms. Dougherty worked closely with risk management and internal audit to ensure effective internal controls and corporate governance. Prior to joining Airgas, Ms. Dougherty was a shareholder with McCausland, Keen & Buckman, P.C. and served as a commercial litigator and head of its employment law practice for nine years. Ms. Dougherty began her career as an employment and labor law litigator with Clark, Ladner, Fortenbaugh & Young in Philadelphia, PA.

Ms. Dougherty is a frequent course planner, guest lecturer and author of numerous
employment- related publications for attorneys, human resources professionals and executives.  She has  presented on emerging areas in employment-related claims including third-party discrimination claims and claims by contingent workers.

Ms. Dougherty is a 1989 summa cum laude graduate of Villanova University and a 1992 cum laude graduate of Villanova University School of Law, where she was a published author and served as editor of the Villanova Environmental Law Journal.

Celia M. Joseph, Esquire

Celia M. Joseph is the founder of Celia M. Joseph & Associates PC, a firm that provides employers with legal counseling, training, and other services on a wide range of employment matters.  For over 25 years, Ms. Joseph has helped private, public, and non-profit employers and has gained a well-deserved reputation as an attorney, consultant and speaker to whom employers turn to ensure they have legal, respectful, and highly-productive workplaces.

Prior to starting her firm, Ms. Joseph served as Assistant General Counsel, Employment Law Manager, and Corporate EEO/Diversity Manager for Rohm and Haas Company, a specialty materials business with 20,000 employees worldwide.  In this capacity, Ms. Joseph was responsible for counseling the Company and its managers in the United States and internationally on legal and practical aspects of employment issues, including equal employment opportunity, harassment prevention and correction, federal contractors’ affirmative action and non-discrimination obligations, privacy, workplace investigations, wage and hour requirements, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, performance management, workplace violence prevention, workplace health and safety, and litigation.  In addition, Ms. Joseph had responsibility for ensuring the Company’s global legal compliance on employment law and other matters, and served as co-author of the Company’s mandated Legal Compliance Program.

Ms. Joseph has significant experience regarding compliance by federal contractors with the U. S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) requirements.  Ms. Joseph managed, set corporate strategy, prepared Affirmative Action Plan processes, and provided legal advice and successful defense in more than 100 OFCCP Compliance Reviews in her dual legal and human resources roles.  Ms. Joseph also helped develop and manage the programs and processes that caused Rohm and Haas Company to be one of the first employers to complete successfully an OFCCP Corporate Management Review (Glass Ceiling Audit), and to be awarded the prestigious U. S. Department of Labor’s Exemplary Voluntary Effort in Diversity (EVE) Award, as well as numerous other U. S. and international diversity awards, including the City of Philadelphia’s Equal Employment Opportunity Award.

Ms. Joseph is recognized internationally as a leading speaker on a myriad of employment law and training issues.  Her exciting and interactive seminars empower and educate employers and employees to make a positive difference in their workplaces.  Ms. Joseph has lectured to organizations such as the U. S. Department of Labor, the American Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Labor Relations, Drexel University’s LeBow School of Business, Temple University’s Fox School of Business Management, Villanova University’s Masters Program in Human Resources, and numerous other business, non-profit, governmental, and educational institutions.  Her articles on topics including preventing workplace harassment, The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Federal Family and Medical Act, OFCCP compliance, protecting workplace privacy, and avoiding workplace violence appear in publications such as the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Annual Employment Law Seminar manuals.  Ms. Joseph is a member of the Labor Law Committees of both the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Philadelphia Bar Association, and is an editor of the ABA’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee’s Employment Discrimination Law publication.

Ms. Joseph earned her Mediation Certificate from the Center for Dispute Settlement in Washington, D.C. and serves as a Judge Pro Tempore for the Philadelphia Court System’s Dispute Resolution Center, First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, Civil Trial Division.  A summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Temple University (B.A. 1975), Ms. Joseph received her law degree, cum laude, from Temple University School of Law (1979), and an MBA, summa cum laude, from Drexel University’s Lebow School of Business (2002).  She is a member of the Board of Directors of Women’s Way.

Jennifer Snyder

Attorney/Actress Performs Career Balancing Act

Madeline Branden
10-27-2009

When professional actress Deborajane Governor ventured to New York City with her 3-year-old daughter, Jennifer, to audition for a commercial 35 years ago, she never expected that her daughter would be hired for the commercial — instead of her. But that is exactly how Dilworth Paxson partner Jennifer Snyder, now 38, jump-started her acting career, starring in Jell-O Pudding commercials with Bill Cosby and in a Goodrich Tires ad with Danny Bonaduce, to name a few of the more than 50 national commercials she appeared in. Yes — this Merion, Pa., native had already secured a full-blown acting career by the time she reached age 9. So how did she end up practicing labor and employment and entertainment law at Dilworth Paxson?

While taking singing and dancing lessons as a young girl, Snyder attended The Children's House Montessori school (now Gladwyne Montessori School) in Gladwyne, Pa., and later the Baldwin School for Girls in Bryn Mawr,
Pa., where academics were an unconditional priority. Snyder says she was unsure about pursuing acting as her sole career, so she avoided the choice altogether. "I was academically driven and I loved performing," said Snyder. "I never felt that I had to choose between the two."  Additionally, despite Snyder's successful acting endeavors early on, she said she wanted a more academic, sustainable career option. "As an actress, I understand that a role requires a certain look. No matter how much talent you have, you may not get hired because you don't have the right look. I wanted a career where I could utilize my skills regardless of my appearance," she said.  With parents who are both entrepreneurs, Snyder says she considered a business entertainment career as she entered the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. While pursuing her business degree, she took advantage of the open performing arts community at Penn. She took a year off from Wharton to attend the National Theater Institute, from which she graduated in 1990.

Upon graduation from Penn in 1992, Snyder weighed her options between working with Broadway producer David Stone (who went on to produce "Wicked"), taking on a management training position at Saks Fifth Avenue or attending law school.

Heeding gentle encouragement from her parents and deciding that a law degree could eventually assist her in show business, Snyder entered Villanova University School of Law in 1992. To politely turn down two promising job offers was a difficult decision, Snyder said, but this multi-tasker by nature said she valued a path that would only open doors for her, not close any.  After her second year at Villanova, Snyder completed a summer clerkship with Judge Lowell Reed Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who remains a mentor to her to this day. She served as a summer associate at Blank Rome the following summer, where she had the opportunity to argue a case of first impression before the New Jersey Supreme Court.  Of the pressure of thinking on her feet, Snyder said, "It's much different to use oral advocacy in person — to look the judges in the eye — as opposed to constructing a case through written documents." Snyder said she finally "felt like a lawyer."

Upon graduating from Villanova Law, Snyder joined Blank Rome to practice labor and employment law. She said she wanted to be able to work in a wide array of industries while specializing in an area of law. She also felt particularly drawn to the issues associated with labor and employment disputes.

"Businesses exist through their employees," Snyder said. She said she found the combination of duties in litigation, negotiation and preventative work most exciting. During Snyder's first three years of practicing law, she abstained from taking acting jobs or performing in any context to commit to her law career.  Her return to the performing arts came after winning a mother-daughter talent contest on Sally
Jesse Raphael's daytime television talk show in 1992, which inspired Snyder to create a mother-daughter cabaret act in 1999. She describes the act as a "juke box musical" composed of numbers from Broadway musicals taken out of context to suit a mother-daughter sketch.  Assuming the stage name, "The Governors," Snyder and her mother have traveled to New York, California and even the Turks & Caicos Islands to perform. Because Snyder developed the act herself, she was able to accommodate her duties as a lawyer by booking performances in advance. "I didn't have to commit to anyone else's rehearsal schedule but my own," she said. She also assembled and produced an album, "United," to compile the recordings of The Governors.

Snyder's most demanding scheduling came when she starred in the four-character production, "Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" at the Walnut Street Theatre in 2003. The rehearsal period spanned three-and-a-half weeks, during which she took time off from work to rehearse Tuesday through Sunday for eight hours a day. When the showings began, she worked at the firm until 6 p.m. each day, made it to the theater for a 7:30 p.m. curtain call, returned home around 10:30 p.m. and then woke up the next day to repeat the process. Except, of course,
on weekends, when there were two shows each on Saturday and Sunday. The show ran for eight weeks — two weeks longer than its projected run time, because of such positive reviews.

Snyder jovially reflects on this demanding dual-life endeavor, recounting that clients and business partners often attended the shows. However, "I took both commitments incredibly seriously," she said. Snyder said she has never neglected a client or turned down work in favor of performing.

Snyder was even able to balance her personal life with her career aspirations. In 2003, Snyder met her now-husband, Arthur, who owns a manufacturing business. They became engaged four months after they met and were married a year later. Snyder said Arthur was "persistent but patient" and understood the demands of her lifestyle. They now have a 3-year-old son, Ben, whom Snyder said is already exhibiting a talent for performing. Snyder said she feels blessed that she was afforded multiple outlets for her talents and hopes to similarly recognize her son's talents, be they academic or artistic, in order to provide him opportunities to express himself.

After a decade of practicing at Blank Rome, Snyder joined Dilworth Paxson in the spring of 2008. She said she had been spending a lot of time traveling and decided she needed more time at home. She comments that it was a great opportunity to allow her to strike a better balance between her work life and personal life, especially because of the addition to her family.  Snyder now performs only once or twice a year because she said she is devoted to her family and to practicing law. She continues to be naturally drawn toward practicing law related to the arts, but said she is ultimately invested in all of her clients: "It's important to me to help business people solve problems," she said.  An additional perk: Snyder said she has gained acting skills that are complementary to her law career. "The best skill I ever learned from acting is listening."  As for the future, Snyder adds, "I'll try to keep performing in my life in some fashion."