How Civil Rights Lawyer Kelly Dermody Fights for ‘the Underdog’

Kelly Dermody didn’t grow up wanting to be a civil rights lawyer. It took a pause from her undergraduate coursework at Harvard University, coupled with some self-discovery, for her to realize her calling.

Dermody, now office managing partner of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and widely respected for courtroom wins and taking on corporate heavyweights like Google, left Cambridge, Ma., for Washington, D.C., after her sophomore year.

She worked as an intern for the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and was inspired by the “constant stream of advocates and lawyers” in his office and her firsthand experience of ...