Katherine A. Roberts

Katherine A. Roberts

LOS ANGELES - As co-chair of Sidley’s labor, employment and immigration group, Katherine A. Roberts’ varied practice focuses on litigation, transactions and union matters.

Roberts’ record of achievement combined with her leadership of one of the nation’s top employment practices and her high-level pro bono and philanthropic work has catapulted her career as a top-tier litigator.

“I started my practice doing a lot of wage and hour class action work as well as single-plaintiff discrimination and wrongful termination cases,” Roberts said. “Several years ago, Sidley really started growing its private equity practice in California with the opening of our Century City office, and with that came the need for employment specialists on transactional deals.”

In addition to litigation, Roberts started doing more transactional work and an additional side to her practice: traditional labor and management relations with unions.

“In my labor practice, we are doing things like negotiating complex CBAs and litigating in front of the National Labor Relations Board. On any given day, I could be preparing for a deposition in a class action or I could be working on arbitration for a union grievance or an executive dispute,” she explained. “It works well for me because I like to have a lot of different things going at once. I like it also because I’m always learning something new and every day there’s a new challenge.”

In 2014, a team of Sidley attorneys and the Federal Public Defender sued the state of Arizona over its lethal injection protocol. The case was filed after the execution of Joseph Wood which, at around two hours, was the longest in U.S. history and was marked by improvised and unannounced deviations from the state’s execution protocol, as well as significant controversy over the state’s decision to turn off the audio feed from the execution chamber, leaving the press observers unable to fully evaluate what had happened.

Roberts and the Sidley team represented the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona in the case challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s lethal injection procedures including the use of the sedative Midazolam, and the state’s failure to publicly disclose information about the execution process. First Amendment Coal. of Ariz., Inc. v. Ryan, 188 F. Supp. 3d 940 (D. Ariz. 2016).

“Along with several of my partners, we spent the better part of two and a half years litigating the method of execution in Arizona,” Roberts said. “We challenged the three-drug protocol Arizona was using to execute inmates. That case led to a moratorium which lasted several years,” she said. “They recently started again, but Arizona agreed to change the drugs it was using for lethal injection.”

As part of a settlement agreement, Arizona agreed to stop using Midazolam and provide additional information to the press and public.

Roberts also represents the Trevor Project. It is the largest LGBTQ+ anti-suicide organization.

“They’re based out of New York, but have staff in several states. I work with their GC on employment matters,” she said. “I’m also very active with Public Counsel here in Los Angeles, including several years as co-chair of their leadership council.”

--Douglas Saunders