Employment Law for Business: 2024 Release

About the Author

Dawn Bennett-Alexander

Dawn Bennett-Alexander earned her B.S. in sociology at Federal City College (now the University of the District of Columbia) and her J.D. at Howard University School of Law. She is a tenured associate professor of employment law and legal studies at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business. She has been admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia as well as six federal jurisdictions. Before teaching, Professor Bennett-Alexander worked at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the White House Domestic Council, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice Appellate Division, and Antioch School of Law.

Laura Hartman

Laura Pincus Hartman is a professor emerita at DePaul University and executive director of the School of Choice Education Organization, a U.S.-based nonprofit that she cofounded, which oversees the School of Choice/l’Ecole de Choix, a unique trilingual elementary school in Haiti that provides high-quality leadership development education to children living in extreme conditions of poverty.

From 2015–2017, Professor Hartman also served as the inaugural director of the Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy and clinical professor of Business Ethics in the Department of Organizational Behavior. She also was an associated professor at the Kedge Business School (Marseille, France). Professor Hartman held a number of roles at DePaul University over her almost three-decade career there, including associate vice president for Academic Affairs, Vincent de Paul Professor of Business Ethics at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business, and director of its Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. Hartman also has taught at INSEAD (France), HEC (France), the Université Paul Cezanne Aix Marseille III, the University of Toulouse, and the Grenoble Graduate School of Business. Hartman is past president of the Society for Business Ethics, was co-chair of its Committee on International Collaborations, and established and directed its professional mentorship program.

In the private sector, concurrent to her academic work, Hartman was director of External Partnerships for Zynga.Org (2009–2012), through which Zynga players of FarmVille, Words with Friends, and other online games have contributed over $20 million toward both domestic and international social causes. From 2009–2011, she represented DePaul University on the Worldwide Vincentian Family’s Vincentian Board for Haiti and was instrumental in the hands-on design and implementation of a micro-development, finance, and education system for people living in poverty in Haiti.

Hartman is a thought leader in leadership and ethical decision making, and her work has resulted in the publication of more than 80 articles, cases, and books and demonstrates the potential for innovative and Marketing Communications Department, Questrom School of Business profitable partnerships to alleviate poverty while providing measurable value to all stakeholders involved. A winner of the Microsoft CreateGOOD award at Cannes Lions (2015), named one of Ethisphere’s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics, and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business (2014), Hartman serves as an advisor to a number of start-ups and has consulted with multinational for-profits, nonprofits, and educational institutions. She was invited to BAInnovate’s inaugural UnGrounded lab and has been named to Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women.”

Hartman graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University and received her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. She divides her time between Haiti and Sint Maarten and has been a mother to two daughters.