Peratis, Kathleen W.

KATHLEEN PERATIS is a partner at Outten & Golden LLP. She concentrates on employment discrimination matters and especially sexual harassment in employment, as well as a full range of representation and strategic advice in employment matters.

Ms. Peratis has represented plaintiffs in precedent-setting constitutional and employment cases in federal and state courts across the country. She has written books and articles and lectured extensively on many issues of discrimination, civil rights, and human rights. She has received awards for distinguished service from the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Jewish Fund for Justice.

Recently, in November 2007, Ms. Peratis was lead counsel in a federal jury trial that resulted in a $2.54 million verdict for her client, a woman who sued her former employer, WestLB AG, a large European bank. The jury found that the bank had retaliated against the woman, an equity salesperson at the bank, for complaining about gender discrimination and had terminated her in violation of ERISA.

Ms. Peratis was designated "SuperLawyer" in New York's Super Lawyers - Metro Edition 2008.*

Ms. Peratis is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and its New York affiliate, the Labor and Employment Section of the American Bar Association, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the board of trustees of Human Rights Watch and Chair of its Women's Rights Division, former director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, former president of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and former Vice Chair in North America of the New Israel Fund.

She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California in 1966, and graduated from U.S.C. law school in 1969, where she was an editor of the Law Review.