SFLERP Hosts Charlton L. Allen, General Counsel of the FLRA.
TOPIC: A Conversation with the FLRA’s General Counsel: Priorities, Trends, and the Future of the FLRA’s General Counsel Office.
DATE: Tuesday, December 15, 2026, at 12 PM – 1 PM ET (9 AM – 10 AM PT).
SPEAKER: Charlton L. Allen.
President Donald J. Trump designated Charlton L. Allen as General Counsel of the FLRA on August 20, 2026.
Mr. Allen has nearly 3 decades of legal, public-service, and leadership experience as an attorney, mediator, public administrator, judicial officer, and published writer.
Mr. Allen served as a Commissioner of the North Carolina Industrial Commission from 2014 to 2021 and, beginning in February 2016, served for approximately 3 years as its Chairman. As Chairman, he served as the Commission’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Judicial Officer, overseeing its administrative and adjudicatory functions. As a judicial officer, Mr. Allen authored hundreds of opinions and orders involving workers’ compensation, tort claims, claims under North Carolina’s eugenics compensation program, and other matters within the Commission’s jurisdiction.
During his chairmanship, Mr. Allen led significant initiatives involving agency modernization, regulatory reform, enforcement, and opioid policy. He created the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Opioid Task Force and led the development of comprehensive rules governing opioid utilization, related prescriptions, and pain management. The initiative addressed the risks created when workers entered the compensation system with legitimate injuries and, through prolonged exposure to prescription opioids, became vulnerable to dependence, addiction, overdose, and death.
The Commission also substantially increased enforcement against noncompliant employers during Mr. Allen’s chairmanship. In FY 2014–15, the last full fiscal year before he became Chairman, the Commission collected approximately $993,000 in compliance penalties and filed 100 criminal charges against noncompliant employers. By FY 2017–18, compliance penalty collections exceeded $8 million, criminal charges had risen to 688, and 974 noncompliant employers were brought into compliance with workers’ compensation insurance requirements.
During his term as Chairman, average workers’ compensation insurance rates declined substantially, including average reductions of approximately 8.3 percent, 12.5 percent, and 17.2 percent in successive rate cycles.
His tenure also included comprehensive reviews of the Commission’s workers’ compensation and State Tort Claims Act rules, improvements to case-management technology, greater use of electronic communications, and broader administrative modernization intended to improve efficiency and public access.
Before and after his service on the Commission, Mr. Allen practiced law in North Carolina and served as a mediator. His professional experience has included private practice, adjudication, dispute resolution, public administration, and regulatory enforcement. His published writing has addressed law, public policy, history, politics, and culture.
Mr. Allen earned both his undergraduate degree and Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
—Charlton Allen, of North Carolina, to be General Counsel of the FLRA for a 5-year term expiring August 23, 2031.
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Registration closes on Monday, December 14, 2026, at 10 AM ET.
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