Our Team…
Russell J. Reid is one of the Pacific Northwest’s pre-eminent employee benefits and union-side labor attorneys. A graduate of Whitman College and Stanford University School of Law, he joined the firm in 1968 and has devoted his practice to representing working men and women and collectively bargained trust funds ever since. Mr. Reid is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, a highly exclusive, invitation-only organization whose membership is confined to the country’s most respected labor lawyers, union and management.
Email Russell J. Reid at rjr@rpmb.com. Practice Areas: ERISA and Labor Law.
Michael R. McCarthy has been with Reid, Pedersen, McCarthy & Ballew, LLP since 1988. He is a 1977 honors graduate of Harvard University, where he edited the Harvard Lampoon, the nation’s oldest humor magazine. One of six children of a Chicago plumbing supply salesman, he financed his education via a number of scholarships and a “work study” job cleaning dormitory bathrooms. He graduated with honors in 1985 from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was the winner of that school’s moot court competition. Despite his years, Mr. McCarthy remains proud that he was the top student academically in a graduating class of 1200 from the largest public high school in the State of Illinois and a National Merit Scholarship winner.
Mr. McCarthy is lead counsel to a number of labor unions throughout Washington State. He has represented unions and their members in hundreds of arbitration, NLRB and other hearings, coast to coast. He has also served as lead counsel in class action lawsuits to recover unpaid overtime compensation for bread, cake and snack chip delivery drivers wrongly claimed to be exempt outside salespeople. Settlements in those suits resulted in per person payments in the many thousands of dollars.
Mr. McCarthy has been a featured speaker at dozens of seminars, conferences and conventions, including several sponsored by the National Labor Relations Board and Washington’s Public Employment Relations Commission. He has previously served on the Executive Committee of the Labor and Employment Section of the Washington State Bar Association, the board of directors of Washington State’s protection and advocacy system for the disabled and the parent commission and finance council of the Saint Benedict Parish and School. He lives in Seattle with his wife of 29 years, Cathleen. They have two grown sons.
Email Michael R. McCarthy at mike@rpmb.com. Practice Areas: Labor Law, Wage and Hour Litigation, ERISA, Injuries at Sea.
David W. Ballew joined the firm in 1988 after clerking for the firm during law school. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Seattle University School of Law. David has received national recognition for demonstrating excellence and high honor in courtroom advocacy. He is the fourth generation of his family to devote his career to the labor movement in the Pacific Northwest and understands and respects the balance between labor and management. David is admitted to practice in the Washington State Courts, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Email David W. Ballew at david@rpmb.com. Practice Areas: Labor Law, ERISA, Wage and Hour Litigation.
Thomas A. Leahy graduated cum laude from Seattle University School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the law review, and received his undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. In 2001, Mr. Leahy was named a ”rising star“ by Washington Law & Politics magazine. He came to the firm in 2002, after serving as a staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union Washington State Council for five years.
Email Thomas A. Leahy at tom@rpmb.com. Practice Areas: Labor Law, ERISA.
John Lee is a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law. During law school, he was co-director of the Labor and Employment Group of Oregon and led a student team to the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section’s Regional Trial Advocacy competition. John earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Washington. He proudly hails from a family of long-time union members.
John joined the firm after serving as Counsel to the Washington State Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee. He is a member of the King County Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section and the Asian Bar Association of Washington. In his spare time, John volunteers with cancer research organizations.
Email John Lee at john@rpmb.com.
Kenneth J. Pedersen – Retired.
