Mentor: Jennifer Znosko

Shareholder, Littler Mendelson

St. Louis

Jennifer Znosko, a shareholder and co-chair for the drugs and alcohol practice group at Littler Mendelson, joined the firm in 2011.

13 years later, Znosko’s practice is primarily focused on pay equity in addition to drug and alcohol-related issues. She was drawn to Littler because of its robust focus on employment law, an area she had previous experience in and was passionate about.

“The reason why I went to law school was so I could eventually do employment law,” she said. “The opportunity to be able to do that on a full-time basis was something that I was really looking for.”

Her love of employment law comes from its people-focused nature and its ability to have a broader impact on protected groups, ensuring fairness in the workplace.

“It’s always interesting,” Znosko said.

Znosko’s work in pay equity is relatively new to her, as it’s been a focus in her career for the last three to four years. Znosko works to execute statistical analysis on employee data, blending her love for math, problem-solving and helping others.

“We are helping some of the largest companies in the world with their pay equity journeys, making sure that women and those that are in protected groups are paid fairly,” she said. “That is really important to me as a woman, and to be able to do that work on a regular basis is pretty powerful and fulfilling.”

Znosko encourages other young lawyers to have a strong sense of themselves and their interests and work to gear their professional careers to be aligned with that.

“I am a self-proclaimed math nerd,” she said. “Doing the pay equity work … is the perfect marriage of my interest in math and also my interest in sort of advancing other women and doing something that has a broader impact as a lawyer.”

However, Znosko said that finding this marriage of disciplines won’t happen overnight.

“It doesn’t happen automatically,” she said. “You have to work at it, and sometimes you have a couple of failures first … in order to find where you’re supposed to be.”