Brandon Burns

Brandon Burns is the founder of Thurgood, an employee-advocacy firm, and an Authorized Justice Practitioner representing workers in employment matters that fall under federal and state agencies rather than the civil courts — including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (DOL-WHD), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and various state civil-rights and labor agencies.

Before founding Thurgood, Brandon spent roughly twenty years in advertising and product design, building digital products for companies including Apple, Google, and PayPal at agencies such as R/GA, BBDO, and McCann. As SVP and Head of Product Design at Havas, he led the healthcare group's digital product strategy for clients including AbbVie, Novartis, and AstraZeneca. His work earned recognition including Webby and Cannes Lions awards.

Across those two decades — as both an individual contributor and an executive — Brandon saw corporate America from many angles. He came away convinced that good people too often lose to bad systems, and that workers rarely have access to the same advocacy and resources that employers take for granted. He founded Thurgood to help close that gap, giving employees a knowledgeable voice in the agency processes built to protect them.

Brandon is a member of the American Bar Association and co-presented a continuing legal education (CLE) program for NELA-Illinois (the National Employment Lawyers Association, Illinois Affiliate) on ethics and access to justice, examining compliant, non-attorney pathways for workers who can't secure traditional legal representation. He works at the intersection of employment-law practice and the technology that makes advocacy more accessible.

Employee advocacy Employment discrimination EEOC claims Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division OSHA whistleblower protection Non-attorney agency representation