Adele Rapport graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1980. She is currently the Regional Director for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (Chicago). She was the Regional Attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Detroit District office from 1993-2006. Overall, Ms. Rapport has over 20 years of federal civil rights enforcement experience. During her tenure at OCR and EEOC Ms. Rapport has worked collaboratively with the Department of Justice (Main Justice, Community Relations Services and US Attorney’s offices) on litigation and training initiatives.
Ms. Rapport is the Chair-Elect for the ABA Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division Council and is also active in the ABA’s Labor and Employment Section’s CLE Committee, and was the 2013 government lawyer of the year for that Section. Ms. Rapport is also a former governor of the Board of Governors for the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. In that capacity, Ms. Rapport developed an ethics program for government lawyers and has presented annual ethics seminars for attorneys and non-attorneys from a variety of federal agencies for the past 10 years.
Ms. Rapport has held leadership positions in the American Association for Justice Rights and the Michigan Bar Association’s labor and employment sections. From 1994-2006, Ms. Rapport was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law where she taught employment discrimination and disability rights.