KAREN WINNER

Karen Winner is an attorney in New York, and expert on consumer rights issues for court-users and people who hire lawyers. The National Law Journal dubbed her: “New York Watchdog of the Courts.”
Karen Winner has worked extensively inside and outside of the media on a range of issues, both as an investigative reporter, and as a media spokesperson.
Her landmark book, DIVORCED FROM JUSTICE: The Abuse of Women and Children by Divorce Lawyers and Judges (ReganBooks HarperCollins 1996) was the first to expose the “divorce court industry.” Famed trial attorney Gerry Spence and U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler endorsed Karen’s book.
In the early 1990s, as a policy analyst for the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, Winner created the Statement of Client Rights (Part 1400 Rules) the first-ever consumer protections for people using divorce lawyers, that all NY divorce lawyers are required to provide to their clients. Consumer Advocate Mark Green, then-Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, and a protégé of famed consumer advocate Ralph Nader, was a major influence on Karen’s views on consumer advocacy. Her work for Consumer Affairs, and as a syndicated reporter appeared nationwide in the media.
Currently, Karen Winner’s consultant work includes handling media relations on sensitive, legal issues for prominent clients on stories in The New York Times, Billboard, People Magazine, among other national publications.

As a client advocate and legal strategist, businesses and individuals hire her to communicate what is in their best interest with their lawyers. With Winner helping to communicate their views, preferences and concerns, clients can get the information they need from their own attorneys. Because she is a lawyer, she knows clients’ rights with their  lawyers. She also works in entertainment law, full circle from her days as a guitarist/vocalist in the pre-punk music scene in Chicago.
Karen currently practices in the following areas:
— as a consultant offering litigation support, and thinking outside of the box — formulating strategy,  and providing objective advice and guidance to clients;
— entertainment law
— on select litigation involving legal malpractice, and financial fraud — with an emphasis on women in divorce.

Karen has served as a college instructor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she has taught a unique course she created, Financial Fraud in Divorce, along with Business Law.
Karen is currently developing an exciting series of on-line courses for consumers using the courts and lawyers, and also for women in divorce.
She is admitted to practice in the state courts of New York and New York federal courts, Southern and Eastern Districts.

Karen Winner  is a member of the American Bar Association.

She has deep experience in four areas of practice:

• Lawyer-Client relations, including: * serving as a client advocate for clients with their attorneys; * providing reviews of  attorney retainers (attorney hiring agreements);* helping clients with cost control of legal fees; * representing clients in legal fee disputes with their lawyers; *offering mediation services in legal fee disputes;  * creating multidisciplinary teams to advance client objectives;  * offering objective analysis and information to help legal consumers navigate the civil court system, especially in family law.
• Serving as a liaison between clients and their lawyers, and as a media spokesperson for  prominent business clients and individuals.
• Karen also serves as a consultant offering litigation support, and thinking outside of the box;
• She serves as a consultant on financial fraud issues for women in divorce; and formulates strategy, combatting legal system abuse,  and providing objective advice and guidance to clients.

In 2018, Karen fought and won against a national law firm who had taken a lien for $800,000 against a client’s home in Scarsdale, New York for legal fees the Firm alleged their former client owed for handling her divorce. The Firm had failed to provide a Statement of Client Rights to its client, and the court ruled that as a result,  the law firm was not entitled to its lien against the divorced woman’s mansion.   See the Court’s decision here. Karen’s win was full circle, because the very rules the Court ruled the Firm had violated, were the very same rules Karen Winner had conceived and drafted before she became a lawyer, that were initiated in New York as sweeping reforms to curb lawyer abuse of clients.

Currently, Karen Winner is developing an exciting educational website that will offer unique workshops and on-line informational products for people who use lawyers and the courts.