Adam T. Klein

Managing Partner

My Legal Practice

I advocate for employees who understand something is wrong, and have the principles and sense of obligation to address the issue.

Usually, that means negotiating and litigating against big business, something I do well, and with passion.

Over the course of my career, I’ve successfully resolved dozens of complex wage and hour cases, and just as many high-profile discrimination cases dealing with gender, age, race, military status, and more. Many of these cases have involved workers fighting against iconic American employers, including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Google, Apple, the federal government, and many more.

I fight to win, using all of the strength and resources available to me and our firm.

Notable Matters

Secured a $15 million settlement for more than 450,000 workers in Gonzalez v. Pritzker, a case that challenged the U.S. Census Bureau’s background check policy. This groundbreaking case, which was awarded Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year Award, changed the way many people view criminal background checks.
Representing plaintiffs in Liapes v. Facebook, which challenges Facebook’s design and operation of an advertising platform that allegedly lets companies treat users disparately based on their protected characteristics, in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
Secured a $215 million settlement in Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs, in which for 2,800 women claimed the company’s pay, evaluation, and promotion policies were biased toward men.

Credentials

B.A., Cornell University
J.D., Hofstra University
Admitted to practice law in New York
Admitted to the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of New York; and the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second, Ninth Circuit, and Eleventh Circuits
Executive Committee Co-Chair, The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Member, National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA)
Executive Board Member, NELA New York, 2000 to 2006
Executive Board Member, Employee Rights Section of the American Trial Lawyers Association (now AAJ)
Member, American Bar Association (ABA)
Member, ABA Equal Employment Opportunity Committee
Member, ABA Employment Rights Committee
Member, New York State Bar Association Task Force on Advancing Diversity
Fellow, American Bar Foundation
Fellow, College of Labor and Employment Lawyers
Advisory Board Member, Cornell University Labor and Employment Law Program and the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution
Member, Advisory Board of the National Wage and Hour Clearinghouse

My Story

I grew up in a rural part of Long Island, with potato farmers and folks who worked at the main street ice cream shop and delivered the mail. My father owned and ran the local motel. Think pond hockey, fireworks and family.

After graduating from college and law school, I was drawn to helping people who were struggling with sometimes cruel and ungrateful employers. And, to my good luck, the early 1990’s dovetailed with a renewed focus on employee statutory protections.

One of my early cases developed into a landmark wage theft lawsuit and eventual settlement. I represented more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants who delivered groceries for the billionaire owner of a supermarket chain, for $1 an hour. Not only did we win the workers millions of dollars in back pay plus the continuing fair pay and benefits they deserved, but we did it using a novel legal strategy – a hybrid class and collective action under both federal and New York state law. And we won using strength, exceptional lawyering, and creativity – a tradition that continues at Outten & Golden today.

In the intervening years, I’ve tried to apply that same philosophy in other contexts. For example, I led a major class action lawsuit against the federal Census Bureau that focused on the racial effects of using criminal history records to screen out job applicants. That landmark settlement resulted in Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year award.

More recently, I was co-lead class counsel in a pay equity case against Goldman Sachs that resulted in a $215 million dollar settlement — one of the largest such settlements in history.

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