Karla Gilbride, General Counsel

Karla Gilbride was nominated by President Biden as General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on January 3, 2023, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 17, 2023, to a four-year term.

Gilbride joins the EEOC with over 15 years of experience litigating cases on behalf of workers and consumers. Previously, she worked at the non-profit organization Public Justice, where she served as co-director of the Access to Justice Project. In this role, she focused on eliminating structural barriers that make it more difficult for people to access justice through the civil courts.

Before joining Public Justice, Gilbride worked as an associate at Mehri & Skalet PLLC, where she litigated wage theft and employment discrimination cases, as well as consumer class actions. She also litigated cases filed under the Fair Housing Act. In addition, she spent three years at Disability Rights Advocates litigating disability discrimination class actions and representing disabled consumers before the California Public Utilities Commission.

In May of 2022, Gilbride won a significant victory in the fight against forced arbitration arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court in Morgan v. Sundance, Inc. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in her client’s favor.

In addition to her arbitration-related work, Gilbride has pursued appeals in innovative cases seeking redress for predatory corporate conduct. Her efforts convinced the Ninth Circuit to reinstate a lawsuit against for-profit companies that partner with prisons allowing formerly incarcerated individuals to pursue claims under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and the U.S. Constitution.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gilbride worked with a team that filed some of the first cases on behalf of front-line workers put at risk by unsafe workplace pandemic policies, including a case on behalf of slaughterhouse workers at a plant in Missouri and a case on behalf of warehouse workers and their family members in New York City.

Gilbride is a member of the bar in New York, California, and the District of Columbia, as well as several federal district courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuits.

After graduating with honors from Georgetown Law in 2007, Gilbride clerked for Judge Ronald Gould on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College with highest honors in 2002 with a major in linguistics and minor in psychology.