Ray McClain

Meeting of July 18, 2012 – Public Input into the Development of EEOC's Strategic Enforcement Plan

Ray P. McClain is the director of the Employment Discrimination Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law where he is responsible for leading the Committee's efforts to combat employment discrimination through litigation, public education and policy advocacy.  He has directed the Project since December 2010. 

For more than 30 years prior to joining the Lawyers' Committee, McClain practiced law in South Carolina in the areas of civil rights, employment and labor law, public interest issues and complex federal litigation.  His practice included a number of class action matters, including being lead counsel in a national class-action to collect military bonuses where the recovery exceeded $30 Million for over 7,000 service members and veterans. 

McClain has served as lead counsel and successfully argued two cases before the United States Supreme Court.  In 1978, he argued In re Primus, a decision that extended constitutional protection under the First Amendment to the outreach activities of all civil rights and public interest organizations who offer to assist victims of discrimination in high impact litigation.  In 1998, he prevailed in Wright v. Universal Maritime Services, Inc., a decision that protected the rights of workers represented by labor unions to use the federal courts to enforce federal anti-discrimination statutes, against employer claims that union-controlled labor arbitration was the only method those employees could use to enforce their rights under federal law. McClain was a member of the Advisory Board appointed by the South Carolina Supreme Court to establish standards for certification of Employment and Labor Law specialists in the 1980s and was certified as a specialist in Employment and Labor Law in South Carolina for twenty years.  He has presented on legal themes and Continuing Legal Education seminars to law school classes and programs sponsored by bar associations, public interest groups and other organizations.

McClain was a Mechem Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, where he received his law degree. He was awarded the B.A. degree with Honors by Swarthmore College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.