Sheree Wright, Cortney Walters, and Chloé Woods are not starting a new law firm. Instead, they plan to do something that, in a few respects, is even more challenging. The three Black women lawyers, who each have a well-established independent practice and who have all spent a great deal of their professional lives engaged in civil rights work, have agreed to jointly represent, on a co-counsel basis, cases of workplace discrimination and harassment under the structure of IBF Law Group, which already exists. Wright was for a long time engaged in investigating discrimination complaints, mainly at the federal level. Walters, on the other hand, took up the cause of those who could not afford a lawyer. Woods joined the military service before she ever wore a suit in court.
The joint effort is based in Los Angeles. The kinds of cases that the three lawyers handle as a team are systemic harassment, inequality between genders, firing as a form of retaliation, discriminatory patterns in hiring, etc. Each lawyer is equipped with a different set of tools, which is indeed the main reason. One-lawyer practice will sooner or later run into a brick wall, always. Three lawyers who, by the way, had training sessions in different parts of the same house, definitely won’t.
Photo Courtesy: Avery Fletcher
What Brought These Three Attorneys Together?
Claims of workplace discrimination hardly ever remain confined to that subject alone. Behind Title VII violations, one can find elements of state harassment statutes. Similarly, unlawful termination may also involve retaliation. Sometimes a single client’s narrative may encompass four or five different legal categories before a motion is even filed. Wright, Walters, and Woods kept encountering the same issue from different perspectives: a solo practitioner can only stretch his/her specialty so far, and the case just doesn’t progress.
Thus, instead of going around the problem, they decided to join forces. Wright can read federal regulatory frameworks the way some people read box scores. Walters, over the years, has practiced in courtrooms where the slightest misstep in words can turn the jury against you. Woods has not only been in government offices at times, but he also understands agencies’ mindset when they receive a complaint. So discrimination is a thing that, with their joint efforts, the 3 individuals can take it from the administrative filing to the settlement stage to the courtroom without handing it over to a stranger. None of this was created because of anyone drafting a business plan. It was the years of their crossing paths in the civil rights circles that developed the trust. The formal collaboration then came as a natural step.
Sheree Wright’s Path from the EEOC to Employment Advocacy
Learning in law school, you can gain knowledge of statutes, but being able to sit across from a corporate HR director who knows his company broke the law and bets that you can’t prove it is an experience that law school can’t provide. Wright understood such a situation at the EEOC level. As a federal investigator, she not only participated in corporate discrimination investigations but also experienced them for years. She dissected complaint files. In addition, she comforted witnesses who were afraid to speak. On top of that, she decided whether a company had violated federal anti-discrimination laws. This type of work has a lasting impact on how one practices law, and in Wright’s situation, it was the basis of everything she has been doing since then.
It was at DePaul University that she received her degree in Political Science. Nowadays, however, her legal practice encompasses immigration law, family law, and employment discrimination. Surprisingly, all these areas have one thing in common: clients who have been so structurally disadvantaged that they associate the concept of fair treatment solely with others. Moreover, Wright co-launched The Wright Way Foundation, which is tackling poverty and homelessness in Jamaica and regularly sends resources to disadvantaged youth in the country.
Ask anyone who’s worked with Wright, and civic engagement will definitely be mentioned. She not only volunteers with Mi Familia Vota, an organization that primarily aims to enhance Latino and immigrant civic participation in the country, but also offers her services to those most likely to feel that the legal system has been designed for others, not them. Wright has already been recognized among Arizona’s National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40, a distinction that aligns well with a lifelong career dedicated to advocating for those overlooked by the system.
Cortney Walters and the Courtroom Side of Civil Rights
Public defense is a very hard training ground. Walter first started there, helping poor defendants in Florida and seeing firsthand how the legal system’s deep flaws cause people who cannot afford a lawyer to be lost and disappear. The cases were very time-sensitive. The decisions were very much a matter of life or death. She has carried those lessons with her into every period of her working life that followed.
Walters went to Howard University. After that, she launched her own company, The Law Office of Cortney E. Walters, PLLC, and changed her career path to civil rights and personal injury. Within the IBF Law Group, the one you most want to have is Walters when the case is set for trial. Cases of discrimination law that are brought before a jury call for someone who is able to take complex legal language and turn it into a story that twelve people in a room can actually understand. That is what Walters does. She has been in the business long enough to have that skill.
South Florida’s 40 Under 40 counted her name. So did the National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 list. Such awards indicate something which Walters would perhaps state in simple words: she thinks that people who have been discriminated against should have lawyers who do not just see their cases as work but are willing to hold the other side accountable in court.
How Chloé Woods’s Military Background Shapes Her Legal Work
Military service was the Air Force for Chloé Woods, and the decision to go to law school came later. In fact, it was through military service that she was left with two things that don’t fade: a sense of public obligation and a low tolerance for institutions that let people down. For example, these two traits influence the way she currently handles discrimination cases.
After the military, her government career led her to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, where she served as Assistant Attorney General. The next role was with the Virgin Islands Bar Association, which essentially gave her two jobs at once: Executive Director and General Counsel. It meant that she was running the organization and doing its legal work at the same time. After that, she was elected chair of the National Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. It was a national post that gave her the opportunity to be involved in policymaking and to develop young professional lawyers across the whole country.
She was recognized by the Arizona Black Bar as a “Rising Star.” At the IBF Law Group, Woods offers a perspective that the other two attorneys have only recently recognized: a focus on the institution as a whole. She is very familiar with the processes of government agencies for complaint investigations. She can pinpoint areas of regulatory frameworks overlapping as well as those that remain uncovered. When constructing the case, she has the ability to use the kind of language that administrative bodies are more likely to react to, as well as the kind of language that courts expect.
A Broader Mission Beyond the Courtroom
This collaboration did not simply happen by coincidence. Wright is a co-founder of a nonprofit organization that alleviates poverty in Jamaica. Walters has been advocating for years that the legal system should not treat marginalized communities as footnotes. Woods dedicated her time to mentoring young lawyers and enhancing bar associations from the inside. All three of them are convinced that legal work should have a deeper meaning beyond just billable hours, and that is what really holds them together.
Workplace discrimination harms not only the complainant but also the entire organization by contaminating it. The atmosphere changes. Others become aware. People stop complaining because they think it would be futile. Wright, Walters, and Woods want to break this vicious cycle by addressing individual injury and institutional decay simultaneously, one case at a time.
No law firm can guarantee a certain result, and IBF Law Group doesn’t either. Each matter is decided based on its own facts. What lawyers provide is expert advice for individuals who think they have been subjected to workplace discrimination or harassment and want to know their options.
About IBF Law Group
IBF Law Group handles civil rights, employment law, and social justice cases. Sheree Wright, Cortney Walters, and Chloé Woods co-counsel on workplace discrimination and harassment claims. Between them, they’ve worked inside federal agencies, stood before trial courts, served in government offices, and run nonprofit organizations. The group represents individuals who have been affected by discriminatory practices in the workplace.
Media Contact: Jeanie Alvarez
Company: IBF Law Group
Email: media@ibflaw.com
Phone: 602-833-1110
Website: www.ibflaw.com
