Sweet Stevens Mourns Passing of a Founding Partner
Announcement
New Britain, PA – With heavy hearts, the attorneys and staff of the law firm of Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams LLP announce the passing of one of the firm’s founding partners, Charles N. “Chuck” Sweet. A pioneer of public sector labor law in Pennsylvania, Sweet dedicated more than 40 years to advancing the legal practice of public education and labor relations before he retired from his practice in 2015. He was 80 years old.
In 1995, Sweet and eight colleagues established one of Pennsylvania’s first private law firms wholly dedicated to education law. His contributions were instrumental in terms of “firsts” for Pennsylvania labor law and helped establish his firm as a leading practice that has since served hundreds of school and municipal entities across the commonwealth.
“Chuck’s skill as a labor negotiator on behalf of school districts was legendary,” said Ellis H. Katz, his former law partner and close friend. “Both friends and foes recognized his exceptional advocacy skills. Moreover, in addition to his professional accomplishments, he was incredibly generous with his time throughout his career in helping others with the myriad of problems faced by lawyers representing school districts.”
Sweets accomplishments include:
- Helping to establish the first intermediate unit in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- Negotiating several of the first collective bargaining agreements under Act 195 enacted in 1970, which established the framework of public-sector collective bargaining in Pennsylvania and gave public employees and teachers the right to strike.
- Negotiating over 600 collective bargaining agreements in Pennsylvania.
- Providing insight, recommendations, and suggestions to the Pennsylvania 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.
- Serving as solicitor or labor counsel to many school districts, intermediate units and vocational-technical schools.
- Serving as chair of the Labor Relations Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and as president of the Pennsylvania School Board Solicitors Association.
Sweet was a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
“This law firm would not have become what it is without his presence and influence over many years,” added Katz. “He was a brilliant mentor and dear friend to all of us as the firm grew to what it is today. He was larger than life and will be sorely missed.”
Services will be held at a future date.
Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams, LLP was formed in 1995 by nine experienced education lawyers who created the first private law practice in Pennsylvania dedicated entirely to Education Law. Since then, the firm has grown to 26 attorneys who represent over 290 school and municipal entities as Solicitors or as Special Counsel in more than 50 counties throughout Pennsylvania, and in additional practice areas, such as Construction Law, Tax Assessment Appeals, Audit of Operations and Practices, Real Estate Law and Oil, Gas and Mineral Law.