Dahlia C. Rudavsky is a partner in the Newton firm of Messing, Rudavsky & Weliky, P.C. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, Ms. Rudavsky received her law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Ms. Rudavsky concentrates her practice on the representation of individual employees and unions, with an emphasis on discrimination cases. She was the 1990 recipient of the Georgina Smith Award of the American Association of University Professors for “outstanding advocacy on behalf of academic women” and continues to represent large numbers of university faculty in tenure, promotion, equal pay and other discrimination cases. In 1999, she won a federal court appeal in a major equal pay suit against a Massachusetts charity, and persuaded the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that the state law cap on damage awards against charities in tort cases does not apply to damages awarded for discrimination. In 2011, she won a victory in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts that extended the anti-retaliation provisions of the Massachusetts law against discrimination to former employees.
Recognized as a Boston-area “Lawyer of the Year” in the 2014, 2017 and 2019 editions of Best Lawyers for her work representing individuals in employment law, Ms. Rudavsky was also previously named the “Lawyer of the Year” in the union labor category. She was also named one of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s “Lawyers of the Year” for 1999. In 2002 she was recognized by Boston Magazine in its “Best of Boston” list of attorneys concentrating in employment law, and has been named by Massachusetts Super Lawyers every year since 2004. Since 2005, she has repeatedly been named one of the Top 50 Female Super Lawyers in Massachusetts or New England by Boston Magazine. She is the past chair of the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association’s MCAD/EEOC Committee, is a former member of the steering committee of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, and since 2007 has been a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section Council, where she has served in leadership positions repeatedly since 2009. Ms. Rudavsky was recognized as in The Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers 2003-2004 Guide, selected for her skill in plaintiff’s employment and labor law. According to the Guide, Ms. Rudavsky “won praise from defendant attorneys as a lawyer who ‘really knows what she’s doing’.” She was further recognized in the 2014 Chamber’s USA Guide for her “expertise pertaining to discrimination matters, acting for individual employees and unions,” and for her “calm demeanor and effective litigation style.” During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years, Ms. Rudavsky taught Labor Law at Harvard Law School as a Lecturer in Law.
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