ADAM T. KLEIN is Managing Partner of Outten & Golden LLP, and founded the firm’s class action practice area. His practice focuses on the prosecution of class actions and impact litigation relating to race, gender, and immigration-based statutory discrimination. In addition, Mr. Klein has extensive experience litigating race and restorative justice cases concerning the criminal justice system and resulting collateral consequences in the workplace and in other contexts. Mr. Klein currently serves as lead or co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel in numerous major class action lawsuits involving discrimination claims in the financial services industry, the high tech industry, and challenges to the use of credit and criminal history records for employment decisions. Mr. Klein is co-lead plaintiffs’ class counsel in a gender discrimination lawsuit challenging employment practices at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Klein is also lead counsel in a recently filed major class action filed against Washington State and all 39 counties within that state on behalf of tens of thousands of people with unconstitutional felony drug convictions and related offenses seeking the restitution of LFOs (fines and fees) and other forms of relief relating to the collateral consequences of those convictions.
Mr. Klein is lead class counsel in a now concluded lawsuit against the Census Bureau, which was filed in affiliation with a consortium of civil-rights organizations challenging the use of arrest and criminal history records as a screen for employment for 850,000 applicants. In 2016, the parties reached a landmark settlement with the federal government that requires the Census Bureau to reform its hiring practices for the 2020 decennial census as well as creating a class-member Records Assistance Project housed at the Cornell University ILR School and in coordination with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The Census Bureau legal team led by Mr. Klein won the Public Justice 2017 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.
In addition, Mr. Klein serves as co-lead plaintiffs’ class counsel in now settled nationwide discrimination class action lawsuits against Smith Barney (gender – Amochaev v. Smith Barney), Bank of America/Merrill Lynch (gender – Calibuso v. Bank of America), and Morgan Stanley (race – Jaffe v. Morgan Stanley). Each settlement provides class members with substantial monetary relief and creates systematic changes to company practices. Mr. Klein also served as co-lead plaintiffs’ class counsel in a “glass ceiling” gender discrimination class action against MetLife, based on discrimination in promotions and compensation, which resulted in a settlement that created beneficial changes in the company.
Mr. Klein is the immediate past Co-Chair of the Executive Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. For numerous years, Mr. Klein has been selected as one of the Lawdragon 500 leading lawyers in America as well as Best Lawyers in America, New York’s Super Lawyers – Manhattan Edition, and as a member of the Hall of Fame in the Legal 500. Mr. Klein is a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers. Mr. Klein received his undergraduate degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1987 and his law degree from Hofstra University in 1990.
(*Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)
