Sweet Receives Career Achievement Award
News Release
(New Britain, PA) – Attorney Charles N. Sweet of the Education Law firm of Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams LLP has been given the “President’s Award for Distinguished Career Achievement in School Law” by the Pennsylvania School Board Solicitors Association, part of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Established in 2001, the award honors and recognizes someone who has contributed to Pennsylvania school law and the common good of Pennsylvania public schools.
Sweet, Of Counsel to the firm that bears his name, is a known authority on education and public sector labor law in Pennsylvania, having served as Solicitor or Labor Counsel to numerous school districts, intermediate units and vocational-technical schools over the last forty years. During that time, he also:
- Tried one of the first special education due process case in Pennsylvania under the PARC Consent Decree, before the passage of federal special education legislation
- Helped to establish the first Intermediate Unit (regional public school service agency) in the commonwealth
- Negotiated several of the first collective bargaining agreements under Act 195 enacted in 1970, which established the framework of public-sector collective bargaining in Pennsylvania, giving public employees and teachers the right to strike (and continued on to negotiate over 600 collective bargaining agreements within the commonwealth)
- Provided insight, recommendations, and suggestions to the General Assembly that led to its adoption of Act 88 of 1992 a ground-breaking revision to Pennsylvania’s collective bargaining law, later testing and developing strategies for implementing collective bargaining under that Act
- Served as President of the Labor Relations Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and as President of the Pennsylvania School Board Solicitors Association
Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams, LLP was founded in 1995 by nine experienced education lawyers who created the first practice in Pennsylvania dedicated entirely to Education Law. Since then, the firm has grown to 18 attorneys who represent over 290 school and municipal entities as Solicitors or as Special Counsel in more than 50 counties throughout Pennsylvania.