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Tracy Cole

Tracy Cole serves as Baker Hostetler’s Employment Coordinator for the New York office. She is a former prosecutor and experienced trial lawyer who focuses her practice on employment litigation and complex commercial matters, as well as criminal, antitrust and RICO cases. Ms. Cole has represented clients in state and federal litigation and arbitration, including disputes arising out of employment, partnership, licensing, sales and other agreements, as well as actual and threatened civil RICO claims.

Ms. Cole counsels and represents employers in many aspects of employment law and litigation, including claimed employment discrimination, covenants not to compete, trade secret and confidential information protection, wrongful termination, harassment, FMLA and wage and hour matters, internal investigations and traditional labor disputes. She has successfully defended against claims of employment discrimination and unfair competition before administrative agencies and state and federal courts, as well as civil antitrust claims involving claims of price fixing, attempted monopolization and unfair competition. She counsels clients on a range of compliance, regulatory and employment issues, and has represented clients before state and federal agencies, including United States Attorneys’ Offices, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, State Attorneys General’s Offices, the New York State Division of Human Rights, the Connecticut Department of Labor, the New Jersey Environmental Protection Agency and the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Her litigation experience ranges from single-plaintiff lawsuits to complex multidistrict litigation. Notable successes include:

• obtained summary judgment on complaint alleging Title VII gender discrimination and Age Discrimination in Employment Act;
• obtained dismissal of antitrust and RICO complaint against client named in alleged wide-ranging insurance conspiracy;
• as part of joint defense group, obtained dismissal of complaint alleging industry-wide price fixing and attempted monopolization conspiracy and successfully defended dismissal before the Second Circuit;
• obtained dismissal of complaint alleging unfair competition under New York State law.

In addition to her employment and commercial litigation practice, Ms. Cole is involved in several adversary actions in connection with the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS) Liquidation Trusteeship and Counsel, including Picard v. Picower, and is a member of several teams representing the Trustee in connection with third-party litigation related to the BLMIS estate.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Cole served as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. There, she was assigned to the Career Criminal Program, a unit that concentrated in prosecuting major cases and repeat felony offenders. In that capacity, she prosecuted schemes to defraud, grand larcenies, credit card fraud and identity theft, as well as attempted murders, robberies, assaults, burglaries and narcotics offenses.

Prominent cases prosecuted by Ms. Cole include large-scale employee thefts from financial institutions, educational institutions and other businesses; a wide-ranging complex immigration scheme to defraud more than one hundred victims; a pattern of commercial burglaries in midtown Manhattan; a pattern of gun- and knife-point robberies of deliverymen; and an attempted shooting outside the Empire State Building.

Ms. Cole has served as an adjunct legal writing instructor at Columbia Law School. Before joining the District Attorney’s Office, Ms. Cole served as a law clerk to the Hon. David M. Ebel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. While in law school, she was a Notes Editor of the Columbia Law Review.