The NLRB Welcomes Crystal Carey as General Counsel

The NLRB General Counsel is the agency’s chief prosecutor and chief lawyer for enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act. By statute and delegation, the General Counsel:

• Investigates and decides whether unfair‑labor‑practice (ULP) charges have merit and whether to issue a formal complaint.
• Directs and supervises all NLRB field offices and attorneys in investigating charges, litigating ULP cases before administrative law judges, and running representation (union‑election) cases.
• Represents the Board in certain court proceedings (through the Office of General Counsel divisions), including seeking injunctions in federal court in some cases.
• Issues guidance memoranda and instructions that set enforcement priorities and legal theories for the agency’s staff. This authority is independent of the five‑member Board’s adjudicative role and is assigned specifically to the General Counsel under Section 3(d) of the NLRA and the NLRB’s organization rules.

The NLRB is split into two separate parts with different jobs:

• General Counsel (GC): Runs the enforcement side. The GC and staff investigate unfair‑labor‑practice charges, decide which cases to prosecute, issue complaints, and litigate those cases. The GC also supervises the regional offices that handle investigations and elections.
• Board Members and Chair: Make up a five‑member quasi‑judicial Board that decides cases and sets national labor‑law precedent. They review decisions from administrative law judges and issue final orders, and they can do rulemaking. The Chair leads and administers the Board’s adjudicative side, but does not control which ULP cases the GC chooses to bring. Conversely, the GC cannot tell Board members how to decide cases. Both the Board Members and the GC are appointed by the President with Senate consent, but they exercise different, deliberately separated powers.

Within the NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel:

• Division of Enforcement Litigation mainly handles the Board’s appellate court work.
  • Its Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Branch represents the Board in federal courts of appeals and in the U.S. Supreme Court in cases seeking enforcement or review of Board orders, drafting briefs and arguing the cases.
• Office of Appeals (which is part of the Division of Enforcement Litigation) reviews appeals when Regional Directors dismiss or defer unfair‑labor‑practice charges and when regions deny certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Staff attorneys re‑examine the investigative file and law and recommend whether the General Counsel should affirm or reverse the region. The General Counsel’s decisions on these ULP appeals are final within the agency and not reviewable by the Board or courts.

A Field Attorney in a Regional Office works on the front lines of NLRB enforcement. Typical duties include:

• Investigating unfair‑labor‑practice charges by interviewing witnesses, gathering documents, and analyzing the facts and law.
• Trying to resolve cases through settlement; if that fails, preparing and litigating complaints before administrative law judges on behalf of the General Counsel.
• Conducting union‑representation elections and acting as a hearing officer in contested representation matters (for example, disputes about who is eligible to vote or what the bargaining unit should be). All of this is done under the supervision of the Regional Director and ultimately the General Counsel.

For the NLRB General Counsel:

• Process: The President selects and formally nominates a candidate; the Senate then holds confirmation proceedings and must vote to approve the nomination. Only after Senate confirmation can the nominee be sworn in for a four‑year term as General Counsel. This is the same constitutional “advice and consent” process used for many top executive‑branch officers.
• Significance: Because the General Counsel independently controls what unfair‑labor‑practice cases the agency brings and the legal theories it advances, the position strongly influences national labor‑law enforcement. Requiring presidential nomination and Senate confirmation is meant to give that powerful enforcement role democratic accountability and to signal the administration’s policy direction on labor issues.

William B. Cowen is a long‑time NLRB official whom President Trump appointed as Acting General Counsel on February 3, 2025. Before that he served in many NLRB roles, including Regional Director of the Los Angeles office, Board Member (in 2002), Executive Assistant (Chief of Staff) to a former NLRB Chair, and the Board’s Solicitor. As Acting General Counsel, Cowen temporarily held the same statutory powers as a confirmed General Counsel: overseeing investigation and prosecution of unfair‑labor‑practice cases, supervising the NLRB’s field offices, and setting enforcement priorities for the Office of the General Counsel through guidance and policy decisions.

Large management‑side law firms like Morgan Lewis represent employers in labor‑relations matters that frequently involve the NLRB. Their work typically includes:

• Advising employers on compliance with the National Labor Relations Act and NLRB rules, including during union‑organizing campaigns and collective‑bargaining negotiations.
• Representing employers in unfair‑labor‑practice cases, representation (election) cases, and related appeals before NLRB regional offices, the Board, and the federal courts.
• Providing strategic advice on union organizing, strikes and lockouts, project labor agreements, corporate campaigns, and workforce changes (mergers, closures, layoffs) that raise NLRB issues. Morgan Lewis’s own description of its US Labor/Management Relations practice highlights this work and notes that its lawyers regularly appear before the NLRB and other labor agencies on behalf of employers.