Kira represents employers in various disputes, including discrimination claims under Title VII, ADA, ADEA, and the FMLA, wage and hour collective actions, and trade secret misappropriation claims and claims regarding employee restrictive covenants. She also defends union and non-union employers against unfair labor practice charges by the NLRB. She advises local, national, and international employers on all aspects of employment relationships, drafting essential documents such as employee handbooks and employment agreements, and counsels on terminations, mass layoffs, reductions in force, wage and hour issues, and hiring practices.
Before joining Cozen O’Connor, Kira began her career as a labor and employment associate in the Pittsburgh office of a global Am Law 100 law firm, where she also gained experience litigating complex commercial disputes in state and federal court for clients in the health care, transportation, technology, and telecommunications industries. Kira also invested more than 500 hours of pro bono service in representing plaintiffs bringing Section 1983 claims against prisons, police officers, prison medical staff, and corrections officers.
Kira earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from Skidmore College, and her J.D., also magna cum laude, from Penn State Law School, where she graduated Order of the Coif and was the Executive Articles Editor of the Penn State Law Review. While in law school, Kira was a student advocate for the Penn State Law Civil Rights Appellate Clinic, drafting a petition for certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court, appellate briefs for cases before both the Third and Fourth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and presenting oral argument before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on a case that resulted in a favorable precedential opinion. She also interned for Judge Kim R. Gibson of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and Judge Pamela Ruest of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas.