Irwin Aronson is sought out for his experience in labor and employment law, employee benefit matters, governmental affairs and legislative drafting and analysis. Best known for his representation of large labor federations, Irwin is General Counsel to the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and its local affiliated Central Labor Councils. He serves as General Counsel to the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council and its affiliated Regional Councils as well. His practice encompasses collective bargaining negotiations, grievance and interest arbitration and litigation, and he is widely recognized as a distinguished appellate advocate in state and federal appellate courts. He also advises clients regarding employee benefit law, particularly clients in the building and construction trades with multiemployer Taft-Hartley plans. He counsels clients on administrative agency matters and Housing and Urban Development law, including with regard to high-level public-private housing and urban development matter.
Irwin regularly analyzes and drafts legislation and interacts with local, state and federal governmental bodies on legislative matters ranging from fair labor standards and unemployment and workers’ compensation, to housing and urban development, to elections and voting rights. He was instrumental in the successful litigation regarding gerrymandering of Congressional seats in Pennsylvania and in litigation challenging the Pennsylvania Voter ID law.
He is a frequent lecturer and has authored numerous articles. Irwin serves or has served as an instructor for Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, the Union Leadership Academy, Pennsylvania State University’s Capitol College (adjunct faculty member), the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, among others. In 2012, Irwin was appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to serve on its Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA) Board including three years as its Chair guiding the funding and access to civil legal services to Pennsylvania workers and, military veteran, children and others lacking the financial ability to secure legal services. As a part of that service, he changed the way civil legal services for indigent Pennsylvanians are funded as well as how law school programs serving the poor and providing practical experience to Law Students are operated.
He is also a dedicated member of his community, serving on many communal boards and committees benefiting others and co-founding the Keystone Research Center, a Pennsylvania-based public policy research institute.
WHAT INSPIRES ME ABOUT MY WORK
“My work inspires me—and I’m also inspired that our practice seeks and secures justice for working men and women at their workplaces and in their engagement with their communities and their civic life.”
AWAY FROM WORK
“I am a political junkie and a public policy wonk. Motorcycle and bicycle riding, antique auto collecting, attending theatrical and opera performances and reading biographies and novels round out my interests.”