Sara Kane is a compassionate, strategic, and formidable employment attorney who has spent more than 25 years fighting to protect employees’ civil rights and hold powerful employers accountable. Her practice focuses on all forms of workplace discrimination—including race, gender, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, and religion—along with sexual harassment and hostile work environment claims, wage and hour disputes, executive severance negotiations, and whistleblower/qui tam litigation.

Sara is known for pairing thoughtful strategy with relentless advocacy. She works to resolve matters efficiently when possible, but when early resolution is not achievable, she brings decades of litigation experience and trial skill to bear.

She began her career as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the Manhattan Trial Unit for the City of New York, where she defended the City and its employees in complex civil litigation. In that role, she conducted and defended hundreds of depositions and handled extensive motion practice, hearings, and trials—experience that continues to inform her litigation strategy today.

After transitioning to private practice, Sara devoted her work to representing employees. She has led and supervised teams prosecuting large-scale race, gender, and age discrimination matters involving thousands of plaintiffs, securing multi-million-dollar recoveries.

As co-founder of Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP, Sara focuses on negotiating, mediating, and litigating both individual claims and complex mass and class actions nationwide. She has been appointed lead or co-lead counsel in numerous high-impact cases across the country.

Her litigation work includes securing a $7.15 million class-wide settlement in a hostile work environment and gender discrimination case in the District of Columbia—at the time, one of the highest per-person class sexual harassment settlements in the country. She has helped recover $31.5 million in a nationwide misclassification case, along with an additional $4.75 million related to training claims, and played a key role in coordinated wage-and-hour litigation on behalf of production professionals in the film and television industry that resulted in approximately $30 million in recoveries.

In another groundbreaking matter, Sara and co-counsel framed EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) charges and federal court claims through the lens of environmental racism in a large-scale discrimination case, leading to a finding of class-wide discrimination and a $4 million settlement. She has also represented groups of employees in complex ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) and age discrimination mass actions involving hundreds of plaintiffs across multiple jurisdictions.

Sara’s whistleblower practice is equally significant. She represents relators under the False Claims Act and similar state statutes, working closely with federal and state governments to expose fraud. In one healthcare fraud matter, her work contributed to a $63.7 million settlement, with substantial recovery awarded to the relators. In another, she helped secure a $2.2 million settlement in partnership with the government.

Beyond the courtroom, Sara is a frequent speaker and commentator on employment discrimination, wage-and-hour law, and workplace harassment, including issues arising from the #MeToo movement. She has collaborated with organizations such as the Legal Network for Gender Equity (Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund) and the Women in Film Sexual Harassment Help Line, supporting individuals who come forward to report harassment and exploitation.

Honors & Memberships

Sara has been selected as a Super Lawyer eight consecutive years and is recognized among the National Trial Lawyers: Top 100 Trial Lawyers. She has received Hofstra Law’s Center for Children, Families and the Law Outstanding Women in the Law Award and the Long Island Business News Leadership in the Law Award.

She is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Nassau County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and other professional organizations. Her firm has also received national recognition, including Texas Lawyer’s award for the highest employment discrimination verdict and the NAACP Legacy Award.