Mary Jo O'Neill

Meeting of March 20, 2013 - Development of a Quality Control Plan for Private Sector Investigations and Conciliations

Mary O'Neill is the Regional Attorney for the Phoenix District Office of the EEOC, which includes Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. She currently manages a legal staff of approximately 30 employees, litigates employment discrimination cases in federal court in the five states Mary Jo has responsibility for, advising her enforcement colleagues, and is a frequent trainer/speaker for the EEOC, local and national bar associations, employer groups, and community organizations.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in political science and women's studies in 1976. Following graduation cum laude from the University of Arizona law school in 1979, Mary Jo clerked for an appellate judge for a year and then represented indigent Native Americans individually and in groups at the Urban Indian Law Project, first as a Reginald Heber Fellow. Mary Jo is the past chair of the labor section of the Arizona State Bar Association and is very active in the Arizona NELA chapter. She is also the current President of the Morris Institute for Justice, a non-profit legal organization which advocates for poor Arizonans in the legislature, within governmental organizations, and in court. In 1986, Mary Jo began working at the EEOC as a trial attorney, then as a supervisory trial attorney, until she was selected as the Regional Attorney in 2002. While at the EEOC, Mary Jo has litigated many cases, conducted jury trials, and has negotiated many complex and difficult nationwide settlements, including the global settlement of the EEOC's cases filed against Wal-Mart under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the nationwide gender promotion case against Outback. Mary Jo has also been selected to be a frequent trainer for lawyers and OGC staff on skills and substantive subjects, including discovery training, trial skills, deposition skills, new lawyer training and negotiation training.