DGA Hires Robert S. Giolito as New General Counsel

DGA National Executive Director Jay D. Roth announced the retirement of Directors Guild of America General Counsel Elliott Williams, who has served twenty-four years as the DGA’s Counsel. Roth said that labor law attorney Robert S. Giolito, founding partner and managing partner of Stanford, Fagan & Giolito, will succeed Williams, who begins his retirement April 15, 2002.

Williams began working as DGA legal counsel in 1978, and became its General Counsel in 1981. Over the course of his employment with the DGA, he helped build the DGA’s excellent reputation in the entertainment industry for enforcing its contracts and the employment contracts of its members through arbitrations and state and federal court actions.

“Elliott has been a valuable asset to the DGA for over two decades” Roth said. “He has been an important part of our executive team and has worked long and hard to enhance our members’ contract rights and to protect those rights when they have been threatened.

“That mission will be continued by Robert Giolito, whose many years of labor and employment law practice includes collective bargaining negotiations, arbitrations, trial litigation and appellate practice.”

For nearly 30 years, Robert Giolito has represented numerous labor unions including the American Federation of Musicians and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. He is a member of the Advisory Counsel on the National Labor Relations Board and has spoken, lectured and been a panelist before the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Giolito received his Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and his Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He served as an Associate of Adair, Goldthwaite, Stanford & Daniel where he assisted in all phases of labor and employment litigation until he became a founding partner and managing partner of Stanford, Fagan & Giolito in 1977.

Since beginning his employment with the DGA, Williams has participated in all of the Guild’s contract negotiations, including the 1981 DGA Agreement that yielded, for the first time, provisions applicable for made-for-pay/home video programs – provisions that remain the best in the industry. “I have worked long and hard as General Counsel. It’s time to slow down,” Williams said, adding, “I will continue to stay involved with the DGA and its members as a legal consultant to the DGA.”