History

Clifton Budd & DeMaria has one of the nation's oldest labor and employment law practices. The firm's lineage stems from founder Walter Gordon Merritt, who was among the foremost management attorneys in the country during the nascent rise of unionism in the late 1800's and early 1900's. In 1908, Mr. Merritt successfully represented management in the famous "Danbury Hatters" case, one of the U.S. Supreme Court's first significant decisions in the field of labor law. In 1934, Mr. Merritt hired a young Harvard law graduate, Henry Clifton, Jr. and, soon thereafter, assigned him the task of studying the "new labor bill signed by President Roosevelt." That new labor bill was the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law that still governs labor relations in the private sector today. During the years that followed, Mr. Clifton developed a national renown for his expertise on the intricacies of the NLRA.

In 1959, the firm became Buell Clifton & Turner. "Big Bill" Turner was a well-known and highly respected management negotiator. His portrait adorns the main conference room of our New York City office as a testament to his contributions to the firm. The firm began to take its present shape in 1969 when Thomas W. Budd became a member of the firm and formed a partnership with Mr. Clifton. This evolution was completed in 1976 when Alfred T. DeMaria brought his then groundbreaking work in union avoidance to the firm. Sadly, in 1998, we lost the "father" of the present firm when Henry Clifton, Jr. passed away.

Throughout the years, the firm has adapted to meet the challenges posed by the many cultural and legal changes in the workplace so that today, we stand as a full service firm in the ever-expanding, evolving and exciting field of labor and employment law.