Hon. Ruth Bogatyrow Kraft

Ruth chairs FRB’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. She has many years of experience in advising business organizations on all aspects of employment and labor law, including wage/hour disputes, misclassification, employment policies and procedures, and compliance with federal and state laws. Her practice is comprehensive, encompassing business strategy as well as litigation before governmental bodies and in the courts. She has successfully litigated and settled multi-million dollar employment class action suits, including prevailing wage, misclassification and unpaid overtime matters in the federal and state court systems, representing employers of all sizes and in a variety of industries.

After a long career on the bench, most recently at the New York State Department of Labor, Ruth practiced in and chaired the employment law group at a multi-state law firm. She began her career as an associate at one of the distinguished law firms in the country prior to joining the faculty of New York University, where she was recognized for excellence in the teaching of law, business ethics and medicine. She has maintained a specialized interest in healthcare organizations throughout her career.

Ruth had the great privilege of studying law at the Yale Law School under the preeminent luminaries of 20th-century jurisprudence. Her doctoral thesis on informed consent is in the permanent collection of the Sterling Memorial Library of Yale University and formed part of seminal research in the field of medical law.

Ruth has lectured on employment law and corporate social responsibility to business, professional and academic groups throughout the United States and abroad, including to visiting jurists from the People’s Republic of China, the Long Island Tax Professionals Symposium, the American and New York State Societies for Healthcare Risk Management, the National Conference of CPA Practitioners and the National Association of Mortgage Field Services.

Ruth is past president and a member of the executive board of the New York State Association of the Administrative Law Judiciary and President-Elect of the Judges’ and Lawyers’ Chapter of Hadassah, receiving that organization’s national leadership award. Active in the legal community, she is a board member of the Jewish Lawyers’ Association, which conferred its Hon. Paul Widlitz Award on her for distinguished service on the bench.