Joni Haviva Kletter

Joni H. Kletter is a labor and employment counselor and litigator with 20 years of legal and government experience. Her practice focuses on employment and contract litigation, contract negotiations, arbitration, mediation and government law and compliance.

As Commissioner and Chief Judge of NYC’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), Kletter led a 600-person independent administrative law court that hears over 500,000 summonses and conducts over 2,000 trials annually with a $70 million-dollar budget.  Prior to her role at OATH, Kletter served as the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Appointments, Counsel to the City’s Legislative Affairs Office and was the Principal EEO Officer at City Hall. Kletter also served as a labor and employment attorney at Meyer Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C. for over eight years, and prior to that, spent over two years as a Federal Law Clerk for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York. She has represented unions, employers and employees in federal and state courts and before administrative agencies and arbitrators. She has drafted numerous articles and employment alerts about developments in employment law and advised employers on best practices. She is an active participant in Park Slope, Brooklyn civic life where she has lived since 2006