Nicole Portnov

Nicole Portnov is an attorney with the Washington, D.C. office of Kator, Parks, Weiser & Wright, PLLC. She is a member of the Maryland and the District of Columbia bars as well as the Washington Council of Lawyers Public Interest Bar, Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association, and National Employment Lawyers Association.

Ms. Portnov’s practice focuses on federal and private sector discrimination claims. She has litigated employment matters in the federal district courts of Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, Virginia state court, as well as in administrative proceedings before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Ms. Portnov began her legal career at the Attorney General’s office at the Maryland Department of the Environment where she assisted in litigating environmental enforcement actions on behalf of the state of Maryland and helped advise the MDE on regulatory matters. She then spent two years in the consumer law and housing unit at Maryland Legal Aid where she litigated housing and consumer law cases in Maryland state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. Ms. Portnov did much of this work during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and, as a result, briefed and argued novel issues of law related to the CDC’s eviction ban before Maryland district and circuit courts. Following her work at Maryland Legal Aid, Ms. Portnov sharpened her practice in employment law and litigation at a well-respected DMV area employment firm before joining KPWW.

Ms. Portnov was a Miami Public Interest Scholar and Executive Editor of Miami Law’s International and Comparative Law Review before graduating cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law. While in law school she interned for the National Women’s Law Center, the ACLU of Florida, and the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations. Ms. Portnov earned her B.A. in International Studies from Boston College and was a middle and high school history teacher prior to beginning her legal career.