About John E.
John E. Stember earned his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1972 after completing undergraduate studies at Ohio University in 1968. He entered the legal profession at a time when labor and employment issues were changing rapidly. His education set a clear direction for a career centered on workplace law and unemployment matters.
Stember began his career in public interest settings. He served as a staff lawyer at Neighborhood Legal Services Association in 1976 and became Employment Law Coordinator there in 1980. In the mid-1990s he moved into private practice, working as a lawyer at Healey, Davidson & Hornak, PC in 1995 and then opening the Law Offices of John Stember as a sole proprietor in 1996. He rejoined firm practice in the 2000s, becoming a partner in Stember Feinstein in 2003, then at Stember Feinstein Doyle Payne & Kravec, LLC in 2007, and later as a partner at Stember Cohn + Davidson-Welling, LLC in 2013.
He is admitted to practice before the Pennsylvania state courts and several federal courts, including the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd, 4th and 7th Circuits, the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Those admissions reflect a practice that handles both trial-level representation and appeals in federal and state systems.
Stember has maintained steady involvement in professional and community organizations. He holds membership in the National Labor Employers Association, the Western Pennsylvania Employment Lawyers Association, the Allegheny County Bar Association, and the Pittsburgh Bar Institute. At the national level he serves on the American Bar Association’s Employment Law Committee, where he is a co-chair, and he has been active on the Collective Bargaining & Employee Benefits Subcommittee of the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section since 2013. He has taught in the University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s Unemployment Compensation Practicum as an adjunct professor since 2008 and has chaired the board of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee since 1985.
Much of Stember’s work centers on employment and labor issues. His background includes counseling and litigation related to unemployment compensation, collective bargaining matters, and other employee-employer disputes. He has moved between public service, solo practice, and firm partnership, which has given him perspective on cases from multiple vantage points.
He is currently a partner at Stember Cohn + Davidson-Welling, LLC and continues to practice labor and employment law in state and federal courts, including appellate work in multiple circuits and admission to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
