Pamela Coukos is Of Counsel to Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, where she concentrates on plaintiffs' employment discrimination class action cases. She has significant knowledge and experience regarding statistical evidence and the use of experts in class litigation. She is also well-versed in class action legal issues. She is presently also a Ph.D. student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the University of California, Berkeley.Ms. Coukos was certified as a Class Counsel in Ingram v. The Coca-Cola Company, a class action case on behalf of 2200 African-American salaried employees at Coca-Cola, alleging race discrimination with respect to policies and practices regarding evaluation, compensation and promotion systems. The Coca-Cola settlement, approved by the Court on June 7, 2001, represents the largest race discrimination settlement to date at $192.5 million. The settlement also includes historic programmatic changes. Ms. Coukos was nominated as a finalist for "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice for her work on the Coca-Cola case.
Prior to joining the firm in 1998, Ms. Coukos was engaged in civil rights impact litigation and legislative policy work on women's rights. While working as a staff attorney for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, she served as co-counsel in Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic/U.S. v. Morrison, one of the first cases filed under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) civil rights provision. Ms. Coukos also played a significant role in the drafting and legal analysis of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act/Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, which proposes an increase in federal protection for hate crimes and adds coverage for gender, sexual orientation and disability. She has worked on domestic violence and welfare policies and reproductive rights issues.
Ms. Coukos writes and speaks on a range of civil rights and women’s rights issues, and has published articles in law reviews and practitioner journals, as well as guest lectured to law students and undergraduates. She is a contributing author to a treatise on employment discrimination.
Ms. Coukos served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Edward R. Korman, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York. She is a 1994 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where she worked on The Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. In 1990, Ms. Coukos graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with an A.B. with honors in political science. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, the State of New York, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A native of Indianapolis, she currently lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, David Wiley and two children.
