The Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (MWELA) gave their 2025 Lawyer of the Year Award to Correia & Puth Partner Jonathan Puth for his work as chair of the organization’s DC Legislative Committee. In 2022, Mr. Puth successfully led a legislative effort to broaden the scope of actionable harassm
ent under the DCHRA, doing away with a higher standard imposed by the courts. Mr. Puth’s efforts further prompted the DC Council to clarify that the DCHRA applies to all employees, including independent contractors. In the same year, the DC Council also added homelessness to the list of protected categories under the DCHRA.
In December 2024, the DC Council passed an amendment drafted and pushed through under Mr. Puth’s leadership to extend the DCHRA’s statute of limitation to two years, authorize DC government employees to receive awards of compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees when they bring cases before the DC Commission on Human Rights, further expand the definition of sexual harassment to include issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, and remove the DCHRA’s election of remedies that had limited an individual’s ability to take their claims to court.
Correia & Puth Partner Lauren Khouri said of Mr. Puth’s legislative work, “His leadership helps ensure that someone who has been discriminated against or retaliated against gets their day in court. It means that DC’s transgender community may hear the hateful and harmful rhetoric coming from the federal government, but know that protections in DC are stronger this year than they were the year before. It means that a person whose employer fired them because they had severe medical issues throughout a nine-month pregnancy, followed by a tough birth, can actually take the space to recover and breathe and know their rights can be realized.”
Correia & Puth is proud of Jonathan Puth’s work, and congratulates him on this well-deserved honor.
