ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
John M. Bredehoft, Kaufman & Canoles, PC / Norfolk
John Bredehoft is a member of the firm of Kaufman & Canoles in Norfolk. His practice includes all aspects of employment, discrimination, and non-competition law. He is a member, long-time Council member, and former chair of the Virginia Bar Association Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law. He is immediate-past chair of the Board of Governors of the Virginia State Bar Section on the Education of Lawyers; long-time former chair of the Virginia State Bar program on professionalism for law students, and is a member of the VSB Standing Committee on Professionalism. He is admitted to practice in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. He is an honors graduate of Harvard College and of the Harvard Law School.
R. Mark Dare, IslerDare, PC / Tysons
Mark Dare, prior to joining IslerDare in 2006, was a partner in the Falls Church, Virginia, office of the international law firm of Reed Smith, LLP, and its predecessors in Virginia, Hazel, Beckhorn & Hanes, and Hazel & Thomas, where he practiced for more than 30 years. A past President of the Fairfax Bar Association and the Fairfax Law Foundation, Mr. Dare is an editor of Employment Law in Virginia, and is the author of its chapter on non-compete covenants, disloyalty, and theft of trade secrets. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia Law School.
John E. Davidson, Davidson & Kitzmann / Charlottesville
John is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the Virginia Law Review. Upon graduation, the faculty awarded him the Earle K. Shawe Labor Relations Award as the graduate with the greatest promise in the field of labor relations. After clerking for a federal judge, John practiced with McGuireWoods LLP as a defense lawyer for business and government entities. In 2000, he co-founded Davidson & Kitzmann, PLC, expanding his practice to include the representation of individuals. By invitation, John is a permanent member of the Judicial Conference of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Martindale Hubbard has rated John AV-Preeminent. He is listed in Best Lawyers in America®, Legal Elite® by Virginia Business magazine, and “Virginia SuperLawyers®”. He also has been made a Fellow in the Litigation Counsel of America. A frequent lecturer, the topics of John’s recent speaking engagements include ethics, Bowman claims, employment law for the general practitioner, sexual harassment, and negotiating physician employment contracts. He also has published in the Virginia Law Review.
John is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Edward Lee Isler, IslerDare PC / Tysons
Edward Lee Isler is a founding Partner of the law firm of Isler Dare, PC in Tysons Corner-Vienna, Virginia. The firm’s practice is dedicated solely to the representation of management in labor and employment matters. A native of McLean, Virginia, Eddie he in 1983 from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Government and Economics. In 1987, he graduated from the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, where he served as a member of the Board of Editors of the William & Mary Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation, Mr. Isler served for a year as a judicial clerk to the Honorable James C. Turk, Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court, Western District of Virginia. Before establishing Isler Dare Ray Radcliffe & Connolly (previously Ray & Isler) in 1997, he spent seven years practicing labor and employment law in Washington, DC, with the national firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and two years with a regional labor and employment firm.
From 2010–2012, Mr. Isler served a two-year term as the chair of the Virginia Bar Association, Labor and Employment Law Section. He is a longstanding member of the Planning Committee for the Virginia CLE® Annual Employment Law Update. He is also an author of Virginia Employment Practices and Forms, co-author and co-editor of Virginia Business Torts, both published by the Virginia Law Foundation, and a co-author of the Virginia Wage and Hour Handbook, published by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce Legal Reference Series.
Mr. Isler has been named repeatedly by Virginia Business magazine as one of Virginia’s Legal Elite for employment law, and has been recognized by Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America, and Washingtonian magazine as one of the leading employment lawyers in Virginia. He also was recently recognized by SuperLawyers magazine as one of the top 50 lawyers in Virginia and as one of the Top 10 lawyers in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. He resides with his wife, Kimberly, and children, Emily, Lindsay, Christy, and Michael in Oakton, Virginia. He coaches youth basketball and is active in his children’s school, Dominion Christian School, and his church, McLean Presbyterian.