Jocelyn B. Jones is a partner at Segal Roitman, where she advises and represents labor unions, affiliated organizations, individual employees, and groups of workers in the public and private sectors.

Jocelyn serves as counsel to a wide range of labor unions committed to protecting workers’ rights across Massachusetts and New England. Collectively, her union clients represent thousands of members, including building trades workers; postal workers; public- and private-sector college and university faculty and staff; public school educators and staff; steelworkers; machinists; aerospace and transit workers; wall-to-wall bargaining units of city and town employees, including dispatch and DPW workers; and employees of federal
contractors.

Jocelyn’s union practice includes traditional labor relations matters such as collective bargaining, arbitration, administrative proceedings, litigation, internal union governance, and organizing. Her work for building trades unions also includes evaluating and handling bid protests, and advising on prevailing wage and false claims matters for the Massachusetts Foundation for Fair Contracting, a joint labor-management organization that monitors and promotes fair competition and labor standards compliance in the public construction industry. She also provides strategic counsel to labor organizations on public policy, including regulatory enforcement, legislative advocacy, and government relations at the federal, state, and municipal levels.

Her employment law practice focuses on advising clients and privately enforcing state and federal wage and hour laws; pursuing civil rights claims, including employment discrimination based on disability, age, race, gender, sexual harassment, and Title IX, as well as First Amendment violations; and litigating contract claims, including severance negotiations. Jocelyn also advocates for young actors requiring entertainment industry waivers to work in film and entertainment in Massachusetts and, in conjunction with production companies and with the support of SAG-AFTRA, has worked on films including Slenderman, The Holdovers and CODA.

Before joining the firm in 2015, Jocelyn spent more than 15 years as an Assistant Attorney General in the Fair Labor Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, serving primarily as Deputy Chief and Special Counsel for Fair Labor Policy, and for one year as Acting Chief. She handled hundreds of wage and hour and employee misclassification cases. As Deputy Chief, she led enforcement efforts, particularly in construction; oversaw complex litigation; managed the Division’s child labor work and public construction bid unit; and advised three Attorneys General on public policy. She also worked closely with the Legislature, state and federal agencies, and Division stakeholders, including unions, immigrant worker centers, and industry representatives.

Jocelyn was appointed to the Commonwealth’s Joint Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification, the Joint Task Force on Human Trafficking, and the Massachusetts Commission to Investigate Project Labor Agreements. In 2015, she
played a central role in drafting and implementing the Commonwealth’s Earned Sick Time Law and Domestic Worker regulations. She previously worked at the former State Labor Relations Commission, now the Department of Labor Relations, and at a Boston labor law firm representing teachers’ and public safety unions and employees. Jocelyn has been a speaker and panelist at numerous bar association programs and union, industry, and government conferences; a visiting lecturer at law schools and colleges; and an expert witness before labor-related legislative committees in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Jocelyn authored the Boston Bar Journal article “Workers’ Rights Keep Pace with Corporate Practices: Recent SJC Decisions Expand Reach of Wage & Hour Laws,” published in September 2013. She received the 2014 Salt of the Earth Award from Community Labor United and the 2014 George W. Ripley III Memorial Award from the Arnold M. Dubin Labor Education Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Jocelyn has been named to Lawdragon’s Top 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers each year since 2018. She serves on the External Advisory Board of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the McCormack Institute for Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the award-winning documentary Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Bravery & Resilience During WWII.

Jocelyn was appointed to Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey’s gubernatorial transition team and to the public protection and advocacy section of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s transition team. She is a member of Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jocelyn graduated from Colby College in 1990, then attended the Program for Women in Politics and Government at Boston College Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She later worked as an international trade researcher, a research assistant in Pediatrics, and a paralegal at the Family Advocacy Center at the former Boston City Hospital. She earned her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 1998.

Jocelyn’s practice is based in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she lives with her two corgis. She is the grateful mother of two beloved sons.

Bar Admissions:
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
U.S. District Court, Massachusetts

Professional Associations:
AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance
American Bar Association, Labor & Employment Section
Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association
Boston Bar Association