John Peter Dowd

J. PETER DOWD is a 1975 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.   His experience in representing unions and employee benefit funds includes advice to unions and boards of trustees, contract negotiations and enforcement, arbitrations, labor board proceedings, appellate litigation and  class action cases involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Illinois Pension Code, Landrum-Griffin issues, and union trusteeships.  He represents both private and governmental pension and welfare plans and training and apprentice funds. He has also represented individual employees and classes of participants in litigation to enforce federal and state laws involving workers’ pension and retiree health benefits.  His experience in representing individual employees includes a wide range of cases involving federal and state constitutional rights, pension and welfare rights and benefits, civil rights, wage and hour laws, disability claims, Landrum-Griffin rights, and state pension and civil service issues.  Prior to entering the practice of law he was a certified teacher and helped to organize and gain recognition for his teachers’ union.   He was an associate and then a partner in a Chicago labor firm until 1985 when he left to form a new partnership, now Dowd, Bloch, Bennett & Cervone.  He is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (trial attorney), the Illinois Supreme Court and a number of other Courts of Appeals where he has argued cases.