Ms. Lederer also advises individuals, organizations, non-profit institutions, and corporations on a range of employment issues such as employment and discrimination law, including drafting policies and employee manuals.
Through litigation, Ms. Lederer has obtained millions of dollars and systemic reform on behalf of people across the country who have experienced wage theft, discrimination, and other civil rights violations. Recently, she served as the firm’s lead attorney in securing a $31 million settlement for more than 500 women working at the Cook County Jail in a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office and County for systemic failures to protect them from sexual harassment and abuse from detainees. Ms. Lederer has also litigated individual and class action lawsuits on behalf of clients including senior executives, professionals, public servants, low-wage workers, and farmworkers. From 2010 to 2015 Ms. Lederer served as a principal attorney for the PROTEJE Program of the foreign ministry of the government of Mexico in impact litigation throughout the United States on behalf of Mexican nationals experiencing civil rights and labor and employment abuses.
Ms. Lederer founded the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and serves as its Co-Chair.
Ms. Lederer has been repeatedly recognized as a top employment attorney by Illinois Super Lawyers and Leading Lawyers and by Lawdragon as one of 500 Leading Plaintiff Employee & Civil Rights lawyers in the nation. In 2018, she was honored by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless for providing outstanding contributions to justice for those experiencing homelessness. She serves on the Legal Advisory Board of ARISE Chicago and is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Federal Bar Association, and the Illinois Taskforce on Human Trafficking. A frequent lecturer and speaker, Ms. Lederer has spoken at conferences, community events, advocate trainings, and in the media on issues including employment discrimination; sexual harassment; immigrants’ rights; workers’ rights; class action practice; and diversity, equity, and inclusion issues.
Ms. Lederer joined the firm in 2010. Her prior experience includes working with the Special Litigation Unit at New York Legal Assistance Group litigating class actions challenging systemic violations of low-income New Yorkers’ rights to government benefits and services and impact litigation on behalf of immigrants, people with disabilities, and consumers. Ms. Lederer also previously worked as a litigation associate at Weil, Gotshal, & Manges in New York City and in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania.
Ms. Lederer is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as an Executive Editor of the Journal of Law and Politics and participated in the International Human Rights Law Clinic.
