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Catching up with Kalpana Kotagal ’95 I was fortunate to attend Seven Hills from kindergarten through graduation from the Upper School. The teachers at Seven Hills made that experience, from the very beginning to the very end.
capacity, I am responsible for making my firm an even better place for everyone to work.
What was the interest/passion that brought you to this work?
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Kalpana: I am a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, where I practice employment and civil rights law. My practice consists primarily of representing groups of employees who have been subjected to discrimination, or otherwise treated unfairly, in the workplace. This might take the form of a company’s failure to pay its employees for the time they worked, taking advantage of immigrant workers, or company policies governing pay or promotion that discriminate against women or people of color. My work is to identify and understand such problems and to seek redress for employees. It is a privilege to represent employees who have come forward seeking to ensure that they, and others, are treated fairly. I also chair my firm’s Hiring & Diversity Committee, and in that
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Wyatt King, Narayan King (6 months), Kishan King (4 years), Kalpana Kotagal
Meera Kotagal ’99, Kalpana Kotagal ’95
Tell us briefly about your work.
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Q&A
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Alumni News
Kalpana: Social justice and civil rights issues have been of central importance to me since Middle School at Seven Hills. It may be that the beginning of my trajectory to the work I do now was the student-led environmental organization I founded and led in Upper School. That environmental education organization, which worked closely with students and teachers in many of the most urban public schools in Cincinnati, exposed me to the race and class dimensions of environmental issues. It complicated my world view. Activism in college at Stanford, including work with a community organization in East Palo Alto organizing against the irresponsible operations of a major industrial facility nearby, and several years working as an organizer honed and matured that passion. I went to law school looking for a way to apply my organizational skills in a different way and found it in laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII creates the opportunity for employees to collectively, or individually, challenge their employers’ unfair practices and to root out the underlying causes of discrimination in the workplace.
What were significant points — events, experiences or people — that made a difference along the path you’ve taken in pursuit of this passion/work? Kalpana: I have been so fortunate since childhood to benefit from life-changing experiences, among them: traveling to Norway with Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV) as an 11-year-old; exploring the rainforests of Trinidad and Tobago and magical places closer to home as a Junior Zoologist at the Cincinnati Zoo; and working with remarkable students and teachers to found a student-led environmental organization. As I reflect back on these important experiences and other formative moments, what is clear to me is how much I have benefited from mentors who saw potential in me and guided my development. Some of these mentors, including David Abineri and Bob Turansky, encouraged my intellectual development and curiosity. All of them helped me develop more fully as a human being — valuing hard work and honesty, striving for justice, working on behalf of those in need, and hopefully, having fun along the way.
What are your goals now? Kalpana: My goals are different now
than five years ago; having children shifts priorities, or perhaps simply adds to those one might already have had. As I return to my full-time litigation practice after the birth of my second son, I am considering how to “compose” my life — to prioritize the things that matter most and eliminate the clutter, physical and otherwise. My family, my work, my community, my mentors, and role models these days are my mom and dad, who have had careers defined by meaningful and important work and simultaneously made their children a priority. I look to friends and family, men and women, who negotiate the challenges of work and family on a day-to-day basis with joy and humor for guidance, ideas, and support.
Is there anything you would like to share with your Seven Hills teachers or about your Seven Hills experience? Kalpana: I was fortunate to attend Seven Hills from kindergarten through graduation from the Upper School. The teachers at Seven Hills made that experience, from the very beginning to the very end. They taught subjects, but they also taught skills, life habits, and passion. I feel so profoundly grateful to each of them for their commitment to their students and to their craft.
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