About Naomi R.
Naomi R. Shatz graduated from Barnard College in 2004 and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2008. Her academic record was followed by a string of public-interest and clinical placements that shaped her early approach to law. Those experiences ranged from work overseas to hands-on domestic clinics. They left her with a practical grasp of litigation and policy work.
While still a student she took on internships that centered on gender, health and human rights. In 2006 she worked with the Gender, Health and Justice Research Unit at the University of Cape Town and supervised student work in a domestic violence clinic. In 2007 she was a law student intern with the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. After law school she became a Skadden Fellow, assigned to Legal Momentum in 2008, and then served as a fellow and staff lawyer at the New York Civil Liberties Union under the Skadden program in 2009.
She moved into the judiciary in 2011, serving as a law clerk to the Hon. Ralph D. Gants and to Chief Justice Raymond S. Wilkins of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. That clerkship preceded her entry into private practice. In 2012 she joined Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP and later became a partner there. Her time at the firm has included courtroom work, briefing and appeals, and client counseling across a range of contested matters.
Shatz is admitted in multiple jurisdictions, including the states of New York and Massachusetts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First and Second Circuits, and the federal district courts in Massachusetts, the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of New York. Those admissions have allowed her to handle cases at both trial and appellate levels and to move between federal and state forums as a matter requires.
Her professional memberships include the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association, the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, the Legal Network for Gender Equity, the Boston Bar Association, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Those affiliations reflect recurring themes in her work: employment disputes, civil-rights claims and legal issues tied to gender equity. She represents clients in employment, civil rights and gender-equity matters at Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP.
