On Monday, OFCCP Director Pat Shiu announced the selection of Janette Wipper to fill the Pacific Region Regional Director position which had been vacant for more than a year since the retirement of Bill Smitherman in December 2012.

This is the second consecutive Regional Director position OFCCP has filled from outside the Agency.  Ms. Wipper’s selection follows the Agency’s placement last year of Diana Sen as the Regional Director for OFCCP’s Northeast region.

Like Regional Director Sen, Regional Director Wipper comes to OFCCP from outside the government.  Both Regional Directors Sen and Wipper were plaintiff-side attorneys for many years prior to joining OFCCP.  Like Regional Directors Sen and Wipper, prior to being named OFCCP Director, Pat Shiu also represented plaintiffs in civil rights suits against employers.

Most recently, Regional Director Wipper was the Managing Partner of Sanford Heisler, a national Plaintiff’s civil rights law firm, in which she served as lead litigator in many class-action lawsuits against employers.  Regional Director Wipper’s practice focused on the use of statistical evidence in employment discrimination cases, as evidenced in the landmark Novartis gender discrimination lawsuit in which the use of statistical evidence lead to a jury verdict against Novartis for $250 million.