Nina T. Pirrotti

Nina Pirrotti represents individuals in employment and civil rights litigation and negotiation. A member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA); a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers (CLEL); a Co-Chair of the Employee Privacy subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Employment Rights and Responsibilities Committee; a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF); and a past president of the Connecticut Employment Lawyers Association (CELA), she is well versed in all aspects of employment law, including discrimination (on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religious creed, marital status, pregnancy, or national origin), sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, contract disputes (including those involving restrictive covenant agreements), FMLA and related leave of absence issues, unpaid wages, severance agreements, and whistleblower claims.

Nina also advocates on behalf of students and faculty. She has guided numerous students through their universities’ internal disciplinary procedures and has advised faculty members who have been targets of internal investigations. Nina has also litigated on behalf of students seeking to discharge their rights under Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination and sexual harassment in educational institutions that receive federal funding.

Nina Pirrotti has received many honors for her advocacy on behalf of employees. She was named by Best Lawyers of America as its 2023 “Lawyer of the Year” for Employment Law- Individuals in New Haven, Connecticut and received that same honor in 2020. As one of the oldest and most respected peer review publications in the legal profession, Best Lawyers of America selects the top one percent of lawyers in the United States each year to be recognized in its rankings. While Nina has been selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers of America in previous years, her selection as “Lawyer of the Year” for 2023 and 2020 is due to the extremely high feedback Best Lawyers received from her peers and is a singular honor.

Nina has also been honored by Super Lawyers every year since 2013. Most recently, in 2022, she was featured on the cover of Super Lawyers Magazine and received one of Super Lawyers’ highest honors, a 2022 Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyer, placing her among the Top 50 lawyers of the state. She was also named as a Top 25 Connecticut Women Super Lawyer. This is not the first time she has made these two top lists. Nina was also selected as a 2014 Top 50 and has repeatedly been selected as a Top 25 Connecticut Woman Super Lawyer, and as a Top 50 New England Woman Super Lawyers. In 2010, Nina was named by the Connecticut Law Tribune as one of its Women in the Law – High Achievers.

Even before Nina decided to represent employees, students, and faculty, she had already devoted almost 15 years to civil rights and public service. At the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, she was appointed to the Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau, prosecuting homicides, bank robberies, kidnappings, and pattern crimes. And as an Assistant Corporation Counsel at the Law Department for the City of New York, she received the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Municipal Affairs Award for outstanding achievement.

Nina is an experienced trial advocate, having served as lead counsel in approximately 25 jury trials and 50 bench trials. She taught Trial Advocacy at the New York Prosecutor’s Training Institute, the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, and the New York City Law Department, and trial practice at Quinnipiac Law School as an adjunct professor.

Nina served as president of the CELA for approximately a decade and as a Co-Chair of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) Affiliate Relations Committee, as well as its Second Circuit representative for several years. She has also served as a Track Coordinator for the American Bar Association’s 6th and 7th Annual Section Conferences and as a liaison for the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law’s Diversity in the Legal Profession Committee. She routinely lectures nationally on employment related topics.

In 2015, Nina was appointed by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut to serve as a member of the Local Civil Rules Advisory Committee, which advises the Court concerning the rules for civil litigation.

In 2021, Nina was elected to the Connecticut Bar Foundation 2021 James W. Cooper Fellows Program. Fellows are nominated by their peers based on their outstanding service to the profession and larger community and are elected by the CBF Board of Directors. The James W. Cooper Fellows Program explores ways to improve the profession and the administration of justice.

Nina Pirrotti received her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University, where she majored in Theater. She received her law degree from Yale Law School, where she was a member of the Journal of Law and Feminism and participated in the Barrister’s Union, a competitive mock trial organization. Nina began her legal career as an associate at commercial litigation firms and devoted significant time to pro bono matters, including employment discrimination and First Amendment/whistleblower cases.