This spring, labor and employment attorneys and law students have been busy teaching employee rights and obligations to students in Madison.
Naomi R. Swain, U.W. 2021, is an associate attorney at
Hawks Quindel’s, Madison office. Her practice covers worker’s compensation, disability benefits, and family law.
Under attorney supervision, U.W. Law School students in the Labor and Employment Student Association (LESA) spoke with high school students about basic employee rights. Similarly, labor and employment attorneys present to Certified Nursing Asisstant (CNA) students on their employment rights.
High School Presentations by LESA Members
Presentations to high school students are given by U.W. Law School students in the Labor and Employment Student Association (LESA) and supervised by attorneys in the State Bar of Wisconsin Labor and Employment section.
U.W. Law 2L and LESA president Iva Petrova (standing) teaches students about the minimum wage. Escalera coordinator Andy Morales watches (seated, right).
The program is coordinated by Atty. Naomi Swain on behalf of the section's Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility committee. The goal of the program is two-pronged:
Over the years, law students have presented to Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) students at East, West, La Follette, and Vel Phillips Memorial high schools.
On April 3, 2025, U.W. Law School 2L Iva Petrova presented at West High School in Spanish to students in the Escalera program. Escalera is a MMSD program through Centro Hispano, a nonprofit that works to improve the quality of life for Latinos and others living in Dane County by empowering youth, strengthening families, and engaging the community.
Escalera promotes economic mobility through greater academic success, career awareness, and college preparation. The program broadly covers key labor and employment laws and their impacts, the minimum wage, how to read a paycheck, rules for working minors, overtime, and employment discrimination.
U.W. Law 2L and LESA member Aislinn Bailie presents on employment rights to Escalera students.
Everyone Deserves to Know Their Workplace Rights
The presentation is important for the students, Petrova notes, because “everyone deserves to know their rights in the workplace, and being able to teach high school students early in their careers about things like minimum wage, overtime hours, discrimination, and child labor laws is a great way to ensure their rights at work are protected.”
The program is also important for the law students:, according to Petrova: The trainings "offer a rewarding opportunity for law students like myself to practice educating others about the law and to ensure that the community we are a part of knows about the legal resources available to them.”
On April 8, 2025, Petrova returned with her colleagues Aislinn Bailie (a 2L), and Heather Kuebel (a 1L). Next year, Kuebel will take over as LESA president. As Bailie explains:
navigating the complexities of the workplace from the moment you start your first job can be extremely tough without the right tools and support. Sharing this knowledge is so rewarding as it empowers students to understand their rights, which fosters more workers who advocate for fair treatment, reasonable pay, safe working conditions, and the ability to bargain collectively.
Escalera coordinator Andy Morales iterates the importance of the program. Concepts such as wage theft are novel to high school students, he said, and it is helpful for them to know where to reach out with wage and discrimination issues. “Students usually talk to me about their work environment. I've heard some horror stories, especially in-between these two weeks.” He continued:
[Managers can be] verbally abusive, they use high schoolers to do tasks more experienced people don't want to do, and create an overall toxic environment. [Students] know what is acceptable from an employer and what’s not, but they don’t know
how to navigate the issues they are facing with their employer.
Madison attorneys Martha Burke and Gabriel Manzano Nieves discuss the contents of a paycheck with CNA students, at Centro Hispano in Madison on March 18, 2025.
Presentation at Centro Hispano
Continuing this collaboration, Martha Burke and Gabriele Manzano Nieves, members of the State Bar Labor and Employment Section, presented at Madison's Centro Hispano on March 18, 2025, to students studying to become CNAs.
As CNA students have often been in the workforce for a number of years and have more complex questions, attorneys opted to present directly rather than oversee the program. Students had numerous questions regarding work injuries, an occurrence not uncommon to CNAs.
Seeking Opportunities
The L&E program is always looking for opportunities to present to more groups. If you have any proposals or are interested in getting involved,
please contact Naomi Swain.
This article was originally published on the State Bar of Wisconsin’s
Labor & Employment Law Section Blog. Visit the State Bar
sections or the
Labor & Employment Law Section webpages to learn more about the benefits of section membership.
