Ensuring Organizational Pay Equity: Lessons Learned

McCray S. Pettway is Vice President, Associate General Counsel for Expeditors International of Washington, Inc., a publicly traded Fortune 500 global logistics, supply chain, and customs brokerage company operating in over 330 locations worldwide. McCray manages a global team of attorneys and legal professionals providing labor, employment, immigration, and litigation counseling and strategy support to managers and leaders globally.

McCray received her J.D. from Boston College Law School and her B.A. from Emory University. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. McCray served on the Boston College Law School Business Advisory Council. She was the subcommittee co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Young Advocates Committee. She formerly served on the Board of Editors for the Boston Bar Journal.

In 2010, the Boston Business Journal named McCray one of the 40 Under 40 and the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly recognized her as one of the Top Women of the Law. The Leadership Council on Legal Diversity selected McCray as a Fellow in its 2012 class of attorneys. The American Bar Association in 2014 selected McCray as a Leadership Fellow for the Section of Litigation. McCray served on the American Bar Association’s Diversity Committee in 2017.

Currently, McCray serves on the board of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. She also serves on the board of the FAME Equity Alliance of Washington, a non-profit constructing and developing affordable housing in Washington. She volunteers and has served as chair of the Judge Charles V. Johnson Youth and Law Forum, an annual event bringing together children and adults across racial and socio-economic backgrounds to discuss the law with lawyers, state supreme court justices, judges, politicians, community leaders, law enforcement, and each other.

Elaine Horn represents clients in a broad range of complex civil and commercial litigation matters, with an emphasis in the areas of employment disputes, products liability, and commercial contracts. Her trial experience includes the representation of both defendants and plaintiffs in federal and state court, bankruptcy court, and arbitrations.

In her products liability practice, Elaine represents major pharmaceutical companies in mass tort litigation, including serving on the national coordinating counsel team. Elaine’s work in this area has included coordinating case management and discovery activities in dozens of parallel state and federal proceedings, drafting and arguing dispositive motions and motions regarding class certification, and drafting appellate briefs in state and federal court. She has also served in various capacities on trial teams in state and federal court, assisted with the design and implementation of bellwether trial programs, and assisted with the design and implementation of an innovative large-scale national settlement program. Most recently, the MDL Court appointed Elaine to the Defense Steering Committee in the federal Zantac MDL.

Elaine’s employment practice includes conducting internal investigations, providing counseling on corporate and non-profit employment policies, defending employers in class action litigation, and litigating individual civil and administrative cases. Elaine serves as Co-Chair of Williams & Connolly’s Employment Litigation and Counseling practice group. In 2021, Elaine was recognized as a “Labor and Employment Star” by Benchmark Litigation. Over the course of her career, Elaine has also litigated claims involving major hospitality and commercial real estate companies, and a wide variety of plaintiffs' litigation, including favorable multimillion dollar judgments for a defrauded plaintiff. Elaine’s pro bono work has included the representation of asylum applicants, supervising representation in landlord-tenant matters and administrative proceedings involving disability benefits, and supervising attorneys on appellate criminal matters

Elaine grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, and received double degrees from Texas A&M University in 1991, and her J.D., with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was on the Editorial Board of The University of Chicago Law Review.

Following law school, Elaine clerked in Los Angeles for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Following her clerkship, Elaine spent a year in New York working for the Office of the Appellate Defender, a non-profit organization that represents indigent criminal defendants on appeal.

Elaine joined Williams & Connolly in 1996. She serves on the Firm’s Associate Evaluation Committee and its Discovery Attorney Committee. She previously served on the Williams & Connolly Hiring Committee. Elaine currently serves on the Board of Directors for the House of Ruth, a local non-profit organization that provides housing and other services to homeless and abused women and their children.

Lesley Marlin is an experienced, senior in-house attorney with a specialty in labor and employment law. She works for Northrop Grumman as the lead labor and employment lawyer for the Company’s Defense Systems sector, which is one of the Company’s four operating units (with approximately 21,000 employees). She also supports the Company’s EEO/Compliance team. She provides day-to-day practical and strategic legal advice, develops or updates policies and procedures, responds to administrative charges and demand letters, handles government investigations, leads union negotiations, and conducts training.

Ms. Marlin speaks frequently both internally and externally on various workplace issues, including labor and employment law topics, culture and psychological safety, diversity and inclusion, resilience, and career development.