Newsroom Article

Charles N. Sweet Announces Retirement

News Release

Posted on in Press Releases and Announcements

(New Britain, PA)- Charles “Chuck” N. Sweet, one of the founding members of the firm of Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams, has announced his retirement from day-to-day practice after 40+ years as an Education Law attorney.

Chuck, along with eight colleagues, established the firm in 1995 as one of the first private law practices in Pennsylvania wholly dedicated to Education Law.

“We were well-situated in a larger firm and could have simply stayed put,” explains Ellis Katz, another co-founder and current managing partner. “But Chuck was willing and ready to take a chance to build this firm and play an integral part in making it what it is today. His insights and understanding of the law were always invaluable.”

In the 20 years since its opening, the firm has grown to 16 attorneys, representing over 290 school and municipal entities as solicitors or as special counsel in more than 50 counties throughout Pennsylvania.

He enters retirement leaving his name not only on the firm’s marquee, but forever woven into the history of education and public sector labor law in Pennsylvania:

  • He helped establish the first intermediate unit (regional public school service agency) in the commonwealth.
  • He 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 in Pennsylvania.
  • He provided 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.
  • He served as solicitor or labor counsel to numerous school districts, intermediate units and vocational-technical schools.
  • He served as chair of the Labor Relations Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and also as president of the Pennsylvania School Board Solicitors Association.

Chuck is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.