Griffaton Named Chair of the Ohio Humanities Council

The law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP is pleased to announce that senior attorney Michael C. Griffaton has been elected to serve a two-year term as chair of The Ohio Humanities Council (OHC).  Griffaton has been a member of the board of trustees since 2004, acting as treasurer and chair-elect.

The OHC encourages all Ohioans to explore the human story and use history, philosophy and the other humanities as the means to arrive at new insights.  The OHC is a state-wide independent, nonprofit organization funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and private contributions.  The OHC awards grants and presents its own cultural programs across the state.

Griffaton is a senior attorney in the Columbus office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease where he practices in the areas of labor and employment law.  He has significant expertise in wage and hour law, employee noncompetition, employment discrimination, wrongful discharge, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) and legislative affairs. 

In his practice Griffaton advises a number of Ohio and national employers on policy development, personnel matters and litigation avoidance.  He represents employers before government agencies and the courts and through alternative dispute resolution.  Griffaton’s notable experience includes acting as principle architect of Ohio’s new minimum wage law (H.B. 690) and conducting sexual harassment, Equal Employment Opportunity and general human resources training.

Griffaton is very active in the Columbus community, participating on the Actors’ Theatre Company board of directors as first vice president and secretary from 2002 to 2005; Friends of the Columbus Metropolitan Library board of trustees from 1998 to 2004; and Community 21 (Columbus Community Cable Access, Inc.) board of trustees first vice president from 1997 to 2002.