Alanna Kaufman is an accomplished attorney with broad experience resolving civil rights and commercial disputes for her clients. A significant portion of Alanna’s practice focuses on workplace discrimination, retaliation, and sexual harassment. She is a committed advocate for women’s rights, and she has written and testified publicly about sexual harassment laws. Alanna also advises and trains on compliance with anti-harassment and anti-discrimination law.

Alanna has a client-centered practice. She works closely with her clients to identify their goals and how to achieve them—whether through litigation or pre-suit resolution. In addition to money damages, Alanna has helped clients obtain significant injunctive relief, including changes in discriminatory policies and practices, through private litigation and negotiation.

Prior to KLLF, Alanna worked at the litigation boutique law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, LLP where she practiced both civil rights and commercial litigation. Before that, Alanna completed a clerkship with the Hon. Esther Salas of the District of New Jersey. She also worked for several years as a litigation associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, where she focused on complex commercial litigation.

Alanna graduated from Columbia Law School, where she served as a staff editor of the Columbia Law Review, was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and won the Robert Noxon Toppan prize in constitutional law. Alanna received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey.

Alanna was selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, and as a Super Lawyer in 2023.

In her spare time, Alanna enjoys cooking, hiking, and spending time with her family, including her three young children.

Representative cases

Alanna’s work includes:

• Representing putative class of women who allege that they were sexually abused by a Brooklyn-based doctor during medical appointments. Wigder, et al. v. Goodman, Index No. 533555/2023 (Kings County Supreme Court).

• Securing a favorable settlement against the New York City Department of Education on behalf of a Queens middle schooler after school officials failed to protect him from unrelenting bullying and harassment he faced on account of his sexual orientation and gender identity. Cianciotto ex rel. D.S. v. N.Y.C. Department of Education, 600 F. Supp. 3d 434 (S.D.N.Y. 2022) (denying defendants’ motion to dismiss).

• Representing a Manhattan couple who alleged that their application to purchase a co-op apartment was denied because of unlawful racial discrimination. Xia v. 65 W. 87th St. Housing Development Fund Corp., 2023 WL 2752450 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2023) (denying defendants’ motion for summary judgment); Xia v. 65 W. 87th St. Housing Development Fund Corp., 2020 WL 7230961 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 8, 2020) (denying defendants’ motion to dismiss).

• Representing the family of a mentally disabled young man who was shot and killed by the Rochester Police Department. Short v. City of Rochester, No. 22 Civ. 6263 (W.D.N.Y.).

• Obtaining monetary and injunctive relief on behalf of an individual with hearing aids seeking employment with the New York City Police Department, including revisions to the hearing policy for all NYPD applicants. Khan v. City of New York, No. 15 Civ. 8015 (S.D.N.Y.)*

• Recovering millions of dollars on behalf of individual who faced unfair discrimination—including sexual harassment, gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and race discrimination—in the workplace.

*Indicates work performed at a prior firm.