Zoe Salzman

Practice Areas

Zoe Salzman is an experienced trial attorney. She has tried commercial and civil rights cases before juries in both federal and state courts. She has also argued appeals in both the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the First Department Appellate Division.

Ms. Salzman’s diverse practice at the firm includes representing people, companies, and not-for-profit organizations in challenges in many fields, including employment discrimination; sexual harassment; sexual assault; Child Victims Act abuse; wrongful conviction; police and prison abuse; tort and contract disputes; partnership disputes; housing discrimination; constitutional litigation; developmental disability discrimination; and school bullying.

She also represents lawyers, executives in all fields, employees, and companies in internal investigations and the negotiation of employment, severance, and separation agreements.

Ms. Salzman specializes in representing victims in #MeToo cases with claims for sexual harassment, assault, or abuse. In 2021, Ms. Salzman represented one of the women interviewed in the Attorney General’s investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Governor Andrew Cuomo. In 2019, Ms. Salzman argued and won a landmark victory in the First Department Appellate Division that rape and sexual assault are necessarily motivated at least in part by animus towards the victim’s gender, and therefore prohibited by the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law. Many of Ms. Salzman’s other cases in this field have been resolved in high-value confidential settlements or litigated in confidential arbitrations.

Ms. Salzman regularly teaches and speaks on panels hosted by the Practicing Law Institute (PLI), the National Employment Lawyers Association/New York, New York University School of Law, and other institutions and law schools.

Prior to joining the firm in 2010, Ms. Salzman clerked for the Hon. Sterling Johnson, Jr. in the Eastern District of New York and worked with the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law. Ms. Salzman graduated magna cum laude from NYU School of Law in 2007.

Professional Memberships

Member, Board of Advisers, NYU School of Law Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights

Member & Past Vice President of the Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association, New York

Member, Advisory Board, New York University Center for Labor and Employment Law

Member, Federal Bar Council Civil Rights Committee

Publications

Zoe Salzman & Billy Joe Mills, Opinion: Tamir Rice Deserves Justice. The Biden Administration Could Finally Deliver It (Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2021), available here.

Zoe Salzman, Alanna Kaufman, Elizabeth Saylor, Opinion: Another Venue for Sexual Harassment Claims (New York Times, Oct. 31, 2017), available here.

Report, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Rights Within Reach: Securing Human Rights and Equality in Nepal’s New Constitution (New York: NYU School of Law, 2010).

Armed Groups in Peace Processes: Who Gets a Seat at the Negotiating Table?, IILJ Emerging Scholars Paper 10 (2008), available here.

“The Tangled Web”: The Right of Self-Defense against Non-State Actors in the Armed Activities Case, 40 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 53 (2008).

Note, Private Military Contractors and the Taint of a Mercenary Reputation, 40 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 853 (2008).