President Obama named Wilma Liebman to be Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in January 2009.  She served as Chairman until August 27, 2011, when her third term expired.  Since then, she has been engaged in a range of advisory roles and consulting projects and has taught at several universities, including New York University Law School and George Washington University Law School. Appointed in March 2020, she served as chief external ethics officer for the United Automobile Workers Union for three years.

Ms. Liebman was first appointed to be a Member of the NLRB by President Clinton and was twice reappointed by President Bush. Earlier, she served as Deputy Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).  Prior to joining FMCS in January 1994, she held positions as Labor Counsel for the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, and Legal Counsel to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. 

Ms. Liebman is a recent Past President of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. From 2012 to 2023, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Economic Policy Institute. Since 2013, she has served as Chair of the Dunlop Commission on Agricultural Labor, a private dispute resolution body.   Since 2022, she has served as a member of the Board of Directors and the Labor Advocates Leadership Council of the newly launched Ownership Works, a non-profit organization created to promote employee ownership through private equity.  And she is a past senior fellow of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations.

She is a frequent commentator on worker and labor matters and has authored publications on a variety of labor law and policy issues.  She holds an A.B. degree from Barnard College, and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School.