FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The litigation firm Conrad & Scherer LLP has announced that Terry Collingsworth, the internationally recognized labor and human rights attorney, has been named managing partner of the Florida-based law firm's new Washington, D.C., office.

Collingsworth specializes in litigating cases that seek to hold multinational firms accountable for human rights violations in their global operations.  Taking on his new role, Collingsworth joins a team of attorneys led by William R. Scherer, the firm's co-founder and a veteran trial lawyer.

Based out of the new Conrad & Scherer office at 731 8th St. SE, Collingsworth, as co-counsel with Scherer, will be handling several major international civil rights violation cases recently filed by the firm on behalf of clients in South America.

Before joining Conrad & Scherer, Collingsworth was general counsel of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) from 1989 to 2007, and was its executive director from 2001 to 2007.  In April 2007, when the litigation practice of ILRF became the International Rights Advocates, he served as executive director of the successor organization.

In addition to his broad litigation experience, Collingsworth has developed legislative proposals to regulate labor rights in the global economy, built coalitions with groups to address human rights and labor rights issues in international forums and researched extensively the conditions for workers in developing countries.

He has traveled extensively and worked internationally on a number of projects such as labor law reform projects in Nepal and Cambodia, education programs for workers to learn their rights under new labor law systems and a program in Bangladesh to train lawyers to represent indigent workers.

On behalf of Burmese victims of forced labor, Collingsworth initiated a landmark case against Unocal Corp. under the Alien Tort Claims Act which, after nearly nine years of litigation, was settled under terms that established an innovative process for compensating human rights victims living under repressive regimes.

Building upon the precedent established by John Roe III, et al. v. Unocal Corporation, et al., Collingsworth has covered the globe to ensure that multinational firms profiting from human rights abuses find themselves in court.

His other pending human rights cases against major multinational firms include Del Monte, ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola, Dyncorp, Wal-Mart, Bridgestone-Firestone and Chiquita Brands International.

Founded in 1974, Conrad & Scherer provides representation in a variety of specialized areas, including professional liability, commercial, civil rights, maritime, health care, government, insurance, personal injury, intellectual property and securities fraud for both plaintiffs and defendants.