Karen Winner: nationally-acclaimed Author, Attorney, ADA Advocate, and Educator
Karen is licensed to practice law in the State of New York. She is also admitted to the Federal District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts in New York.
She serves as a nationwide ADA Advocate, providing services to individuals with “invisible” disabilities — such as PTSD and ADHD — so that they may access their rights in court.
Ms. Winner, former policy analyst for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, led investigations into the weight loss industry and manipulation of cases in divorce court, leading her to create and author the Statement of Client Rights (New York’s Court Rules, 22 NYCRR 1210. and Part 1400.
Ms. Winner earned a name for herself as the author of Divorced From Justice: The Abuse of Women and Children by Divorce Lawyers and Judges, which exposed a divorce industry fueled by greed, favoritism and self-interest. The book was based in part on a report she wrote when on staff as a policy analyst for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. Her style of watchdog journalism on matters of public concern resulted in significant reforms in New York, California, and South Carolina.
She is proud of her investigation into California courts in Sacramento, CA in 2000, when she presented her findings, “PLACING CHILDREN AT RISK: QUESTIONABLE PSYCHOLOGISTS AND THERAPISTS IN THE SACRAMENTO FAMILY COURT AND SURROUNDING COUNTIES (2000) (study commissioned by California Protective Parents Association) to the state assembly in California. See her report:
Click to access WINNER_SAC_REPORT.pdf
Karen Winner serves as an expert in legal consumer issues.
In her law practice, Karen Winner has briefed multiple cases before the Supreme Court of New York and Appellate Divisions, on a wide variety of topics.
Karen Winner has served as an adjunct lecturer on the faculty at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in Manhattan, New York where she has taught a course — the first of its kind — on financial fraud in divorce matters, in addition to teaching Business Law.
As an attorney and legal consumer advocate, Karen passionately protects people’s rights. She champions the rights of the vulnerable against powerful interests. Before she became a lawyer,
Karen fights for government transparency and oversight, which is the thread that runs through all of her work both as a lawyer and investigative journalist. Karen has used public records, FOIA requests, billing invoices, court documents, and she has also cultivated sources to expose all manner of political and corporate machinations such as: shoddy practices of hospital corporations that jeopardized patient health; questionable government contracts involving conflicts of interest; sweetheart deals between private contractors and city government that contributed to public health problems such as diesel particulate pollution in Manhattan.
Karen Winner has lectured widely (American Psychological Association, various NOW Chapters, and for for civic groups and colleges, nationwide). Her work has appeared extensively in the national media. Her articles on consumer and social justice issues have been syndicated nationwide by American News Service through Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
.She is an active member of the New York State Bar Association.
In 1992, Karen testified at the hearing held by the Committee to Examine Lawyer Conduct in Matrimonial Actions, in New York which formed as a result of Karen’s report for Consumer Affairs. The Committee was charged with investigating the lack of consumer protections for litigants in divorce in New York.
Public praise Ms. Winner has received:
“Karen Winner is [the] catalyst for the changes that we adopted.”
— THE HONORABLE E. LEO MILONAS
former Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New York
“Karen is much in the tradition of Mother Jones… I hold her in enormous regard for her talents and intellect as well as her character. She is a superb investigative reporter, an excellent writer and a kind and caring human being with a rare ability for helping the persons whose paths she crosses to ‘actualize’ themselves.”
— BARBARA SEAMAN
book author, The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill
& co-founder of the National Women’s Health Network
“Karen Winner’s groundbreaking exposé of the flagrant denials of due process and judicial abuses inflicted on women in our family courts is a clarion call for legislative action.”
— U.S. CONGRESSMAN JERROLD NADLER
