Rooted in History, Focused on Future Success

After more than 26 years practicing law, Deborah Skanadore Reisdorph is ready to put her knowledge and experience to work for you. After beginning her legal career in Southern California, she expanded her practice to New York in 2002. She is licensed to practice law in California, New York, and before the United States Supreme Court.

Deborah was passionate about the law even before she became an attorney. Prior to attending law school, she worked in the District Attorney’s Office in Johnson County, Kansas, where she rose quickly through the departmental ranks.

Deborah then attended the Washburn School of Law in Topeka, where her internship and clerk positions focused on employment and business law, primarily the representation of plaintiffs. From 1993 to 2000, she predominantly practiced in small to medium-sized firms, where she gained significant trial and litigation experience with juries, bench trials, arbitrations, and mediations.

Since launching her own firm in 2000, Deborah has developed a large clientele on both the East and West Coasts. Her primary office remains in California, but she maintains a limited practice in beautiful Central New York.

After nearly three decades of experience in the state and federal courts across California, Deborah has gained an extensive practical background that she shares with young attorneys by serving as a mentor in employment law. She has helped many young lawyers develop their litigation skills.

Teaching is an important component of Deborah’s law practice. At the Western School of Law in Irvine, California, she co-taught a sexual harassment course with colleagues from Don D. Sessions APLC. Deborah also served as co-chair of the New York State Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Section Executive Board from 2004 – 2012. Deborah teaches and educates students, teachers and parents through the non-profit organization she founded in 2011, BARE Bully Awareness Resistance Education, Inc. (www.barethebully.org)

Deborah is a great granddaughter of Chief Shenandoah from the Oneida Indian Nation. After researching her cultural and ancestral roots in the Mohawk Valley of Central New York, she was pleased to learn that the Chief courageously broke with the Iroquois Confederacy and aligned his tribe with the American Continental army during the American Revolutionary War. These forces combined to defeat the British at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777. In fact, the Oneida tribe was the only Iroquois tribe that fought for the Americans during the war. Deborah is proud of her heritage and strives to carry on that time-honored tradition of fighting for freedom and justice.