Debbie Rodman Sandler Partner

Debbie Sandler has spent nearly 25 years focusing her practice on counseling employers with respect to employment best practices and litigation avoidance, as well as employment litigation involving such issues as workplace discrimination and harassment, wrongful discharge, wage and hour disputes, whistleblower claims, restrictive covenants and non-compete agreements.

Debbie takes a practical approach to solving employment problems for her clients, whether they are start-up companies, “mom-and-pop” operations or multinational corporations.  More than 20 years of litigating on behalf of employers has made her adept at spotting and avoiding potential lawsuits, allowing her to guide her clients through the minefields of employee performance reviews, terminations, reduction-in-force and similar issues.  Debbie subscribes to the philosophy that while the best lawsuits are the ones that never happen, an aggressive defense is sometimes needed to allow a company to run its business as it sees fit. 

She has presented seminars and published articles on many subjects including, attendance policies under the Family and Medical Leave Act, workplace violence, reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and harassment prevention and investigation.

Debbie is vice-chair of the Steering Committee of the Defense Research Institute Employment Law Committee. She is also a member of the Planning Committee for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Employment Committee and past co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association's Employment Law Committee.  

Representative Matters

• Represented a supermarket in a race/retaliation suit brought by the EEOC, resulting in a defense verdict
• Successfully argued before the New Jersey Supreme Court in a case that reaffirmed an at will employer’s right to require non-compete agreements from its employees
• Represented a manufacturing client in a CEPA (whistleblowing) and national origin claim, resulting in plaintiff dropping the case after being deposed