Raquel A. Williams, Esquire is Senior Associate Counsel at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University ("SUNY Downstate"). She has over twenty (20) years of legal experience both in the private and public sectors. Her portfolio of responsibilities at SUNY Downstate and at Downstate University Hospital is very broad. She advises on various issues including Labor, Employment, Healthcare, Graduate Medical Education, Student Issues, Research and Litigation management.
Raquel started her career as a general practice attorney and leveraged that experience to transition to a labor/employment practice. Her Labor, Labor Relations and Employment practice began as a union attorney representing various unions in both New York and New Jersey. She then worked as a Labor, Employment and ERISA attorney in the private sector representing several large employers, various unions and related employee benefit funds.
After several years of private sector labor/employment practice, Raquel joined the MTA in the Office of Labor Relations and held multiple positions of increasing responsibility which included but was not limited to arbitrations, collective bargaining negotiations and handling contractual interpretation disputes for its approximately forty-five thousand (45,000) represented employees. Raquel collaborated with management at all levels of the organization to ensure overall and consistent application of labor relations policies and provided advice and guidance in labor and employment law.
Raquel is a graduate of Regent University School of Law, holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Windsor, as well as a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto. She is admitted practice in the State of New York and is admitted in the Eastern, Southern and Northern districts of New York.