THE GENERAL COUNSEL’S OFFICE

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSELS

Holly E. Van Horsten
Holly E. Van HorstenGENERAL COUNSEL
Holly E. Van Horsten is I.U.P.A.’s General Counsel. Van Horsten is a Florida Bar Board Certified Specialist in Labor and Employment Law. She has spent the vast majority of her practice focusing exclusively on union-side labor law, with a particular concentration on public sector unions. Prior to joining I.U.P.A., Van Horsten worked in private practice with a law firm that exclusively represents labor unions in all dimensions of labor law, including but not limited to, negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreements and providing representation in arbitrations, litigation, and administrative proceedings before the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission (“PERC”) and before the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (“FDLE”) involving FDLE certification.

Van Horsten has also provided assistance with various internal union matters, including but not limited to, trainings for union business agents and stewards, review of union literature for strategic campaigns against employers, and international union conventions. Van Horsten is admitted to practice before the Federal District Court for the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida as well as the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. She is a graduate, with honors, from the Seattle University School of Law, where she was Associate Editor of the Law Review. Van Horsten also holds a Bachelors in Philosophy from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

E-Mail Holly E. Van Horsten at: hvanhorsten@iupa.org

Gary E. Lippman
Gary E. LippmanASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL
Gary E. Lippman is the I.U.P.A.’s Associate General Counsel. Lippman has been representing unions, individual union members and employees for most of his 30+ years in practice; more than half of which time he represented Florida law enforcement and corrections officers along with their agencies’ civilian support coworkers. Before being admitted to practice law in New York, where he represented private sector and public employees’ unions, Gary earned a B.A. in Political Science from Vassar College, and a Master’s Degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Lippman comes from a strong union family as his grandparents were with unions, and his father was a teachers’ union president in Upstate New York. After moving to Florida in 1996, Gary provided legal representation to firefighters’ IAFF union locals in state and federal courts throughout South Florida. Gary was hired by the Palm Beach County PBA in 2001, where he became its General Counsel. During this time, Gary negotiated the first-ever and successive collective bargaining agreements with the Palm Beach and Martin County Sheriff’s Offices, and helped to grow that organization from approximately 1,000 members to 5,000.

His LEO representation includes on-scene at more than 100 “critical incidents” and in more than 1,000 investigations. He has prepared officers for state as well as federal grand juries and he has accompanied an officer into a grand jury investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting resulting in “No True Bill.” Lippman was instrumental in authoring several amendments to FSS 112.532, notably, amendments to sections of the “Bill of Rights” protecting officers from coercive administrative/disciplinary interrogations and expanding their due process rights under sections 112.532(1)(c), 112.532(1)(d), 112.532(4)(b), 112.532(6), and 112.533(1), Florida Statutes.

Some of Gary’s arbitration victories on behalf of wrongfully discharged law enforcement officers in Florida have been featured in national Labor Relations Information System (LRIS) publications and seminars, and he has been recognized for negotiating some of the first collective bargaining provisions in the United States addressing law enforcement agencies’ introductions of new technologies into their officers’ workplaces (e.g., GPS and patrol vehicles’ in-car recording devices). After the officer-involved shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Gary was invited to be the guest of Will Aitcheson for a LRIS podcast interview regarding “Body Cameras and Collective Bargaining” (October 28, 2014).

Gary was invited to join and remains a staff member of the Police Policy Studies Council, Inc., and was published in The Florida Bar Journal (November/December 2016), “Will Police Body Cameras be a Mandatory Subject of Bargaining in Florida?” and (July/August 2017), “Will Body Cameras Improve Policing in Florida?”

Prior to coming to the I.U.P.A., Gary served as Managing Attorney for the successful implementation of a new state-wide Civil Injunction for Protection Project funded by the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) through the U.S. Department of Justice, and administered by the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

E-Mail Gary E. Lippman at: glippman@iupa.org

Ryan Burton
Ryan BurtonASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL
Mr. Burton has been with the I.U.P.A. since 2010. He is licensed to practice law in the State of Florida and is a member of the Labor and Employment section and Young Lawyer’s Division of the Florida Bar. Mr. Burton serves as one of the in-house counsel for I.U.P.A.’s International Headquarters and has worked on several high-profile ligation cases for the International and individual I.U.P.A. Members. Additionally, Mr. Burton works as a full-service Attorney for numerous Florida Locals, representing Locals and Members for collective bargaining, employee grievances, disciplinary interviews, and administrative hearings.

Mr. Burton is a former Police Officer with the Sarasota Police Department in Sarasota, Florida. He was a second generation Law Enforcement Officer with an extensive family history in the Law Enforcement and Public Service fields. Mr. Burton attended the University of Central Florida for his undergraduate studies and graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Psychology and a certificate in Criminal Profiling. During his undergraduate studies, Mr. Burton held internships with the Orange County Public Schools Security Operations and the United States Postal Service’s Law Enforcement Division. Mr. Burton left the Sarasota Police Department to attend law school at Stetson University’s College of Law in Gulfport, Florida. While at Stetson, Mr. Burton worked as a judicial intern for Florida’s 12th Judicial Circuit, working on both civil and criminal cases. During that time, Mr. Burton developed a passion for Labor and Employment Law, gearing his curriculum towards that field of study.

Mr. Burton continues to use his practical knowledge and experience to secure Employee Benefits for I.U.P.A. Members and to fight to improve the working conditions for Law Enforcement Officers nationwide.

E-Mail Ryan Burton at: rburton@iupa.org

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