Michael Roche

Mike Roche is the Chairman of Winston & Strawn's Labor and Employment Practice. He is also a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and serves as the firm’s co-General Counsel. He joined Winston & Strawn in 1993 and has been a partner since 2001. For over twenty years, Mr. Roche’s practice has focused on complex employment and benefits litigation and employment counseling. He has represented employers in numerous class action and multi-plaintiff suits involving allegations of discrimination, wage and hour law violations, breach of fiduciary duty, and denial of benefits; represents employers and fiduciaries in Department of Labor and EEOC investigations of clients’ employment matters; and also represents clients in single-plaintiff discrimination cases and in restrictive covenant, competition, and trade secret matters. Mr. Roche has successfully led and won jury trials, bench trials, injunction hearings, arbitrations, and appellate arguments on behalf of his clients in these areas. He also has an extensive counseling practice in which he provides proactive counseling to help clients manage their employment function properly and lower the risk of litigation and regulatory issues. In addition, Mr. Roche is the lead employment counsel for many large and small companies. For example, he represents two of the world’s largest professional services firms and some of the world’s largest financial firms. He also represents a number of smaller investment funds, insurance firms, healthcare firms, consulting firms, and manufacturers. Mr. Roche received a B.S. in Finance, with high honors, from the University of Illinois in 1989. He received a J.D., magna cum laude, in 1993 from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. Specialties: Employment, ERISA and commercial litigation