Marie Chopra assists individuals who have suffered discrimination or any other kind of injustice in the workplace. She has also spent many years representing unions and defending their interests in all their dealings with management.
Ms. Chopra has been practicing law with James & Hoffman since graduating from law school in 1995. She provides legal services to the Staff Associations of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and to many individuals in a variety of international organizations. In this capacity she has represented many staff members pursuing grievances up to and including the Administrative Tribunals of the different institutions. Her cases cover a wide range of issues, including discrimination, retaliation, discipline and misconduct investigations, performance issues, terminations, as well as disability and workers compensation claims. She has appeared numerous times in front of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal, winning many cases for her clients.
Ms. Chopra also frequently negotiates settlements and separation agreements on behalf of her clients, including through mediation, not only in international organizations but also with private employers and government agencies, and pursues claims of employment discrimination on behalf of individual clients.
In her union work, Ms. Chopra has negotiated for the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements and advised clients on collective bargaining strategy. She was responsible for negotiating and monitoring compliance with complex contractual safeguards on Scope related issues in the airline industry. In that context, she was responsible for obtaining a $23 million award for violations of a pilot Scope clause. She has also represented unions imposing and enforcing trusteeships. In addition, Ms. Chopra has litigated on behalf of unions and individuals on a wide range of labor and employment matters, including vigorously defending airline unions from employer attempts to interfere with union organizing and bargaining. Ms. Chopra was a Contributing Editor to the ABA’s treatise on the Railway Labor Act.
Before obtaining her J.D., Ms. Chopra taught world history at a high school, coordinated the History, Geography and Economics Departments, and participated in curriculum development. She served as the Staff Representative on the school’s Board of Directors and as the President of the Staff Association for a number of years. In that capacity, she organized the faculty, represented them in grievances and negotiated collective bargaining agreements. Ms. Chopra was also an assistant examiner for the International Baccalaureate.
Ms. Chopra was born in Great Britain and educated at Oxford University, receiving a B.A., honours, in 1967 and an M.A. in 1971. In 1995 she received a J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. She is admitted to practice law in Maryland, the District of Columbia, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits and the United States District Courts for the District of Columbia and Colorado. Ms. Chopra is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Maryland State Bar Association, and the American Bar Association.
