NATALIE M. HIOTT-LEVINE

Partner
Natalie.Hiott-Levine@KSBraniganLaw.com

Attorney-at-Law
Investigator
Trainer
Special Needs Advocate
Bilingual (English/Spanish)

EXPERIENCE

Natalie is a bilingual attorney with more than 20 years of varied legal experience. She conducts sensitive and complex internal workplace investigations and training in both English and Spanish with professionalism, discretion, and cultural competency. She also serves as an Employment Law Panel Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association and is available for private arbitrations through the firm.

Natalie brings a deep understanding of employment law, and a distinctive skill set to her current work as an investigator, trainer, and arbitrator. Her decade of litigation experience in New Jersey and New York state and federal courts included complex employment matters—such as discrimination, sexual harassment, and restrictive covenants—as well as sophisticated commercial and contract disputes. Having represented both plaintiffs and defendants in employment litigation—a perspective that is somewhat unique among employment attorneys—she offers a balanced, informed perspective that enhances the depth and impartiality of her current investigative and neutral work.

Natalie has investigated a range of workplace allegations, including sexual harassment, hostile work environment, discrimination, retaliation, neurodiversity-related concerns, and bias based on race, sexual orientation, and disability. She has interviewed employees at all levels—from manufacturing plant workers to senior executives, compliance officers, and in-house counsel. Her strong fact-finding skills, nuanced analysis, attention to detail, and ability to connect with diverse workforces enable her to handle high-stakes, multifaceted investigations with fairness and precision.

But aside from her role as mother of three sons, she is most proud of the volunteer work she has done on behalf of students and young adults with special needs and their families for the past 20 years. For ten of those years, she served as a representative on the Special Education Parents Advisory Council (SEPAC). Prior to that, Natalie served on the executive boards of special education parent support groups and the district’s Caring Kids Committee. Natalie  and her husband also spent years serving on the Family Advisory Council of the Sala Institute for Child and Family Centered Care for Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone from 2015 to 2021, where they shared personal experiences and insights in order to better the experiences of future pediatric patients and their families.

Today, Natalie  continues her work with Caring Kids as a presenter and puppeteer to educate younger students about various physical disabilities, neurodiversity, and bullying. Caring Kids is a district-wide, parent-run group, whose mission is to help children grow into compassionate, positive and empowered members of society through character education programs in schools and community events. Its mantra is to treat everyone with caring, kindness and respect regardless of individual differences. She also supports her oldest son Zach in his Caring Kids presentations to third and fourth graders, where he explains and answers questions about living with visual impairment and physical disabilities. In addition, since 2021, she and Zach have become motivational speakers on the topics of inclusion of persons with disabilities in our schools and communities and the resilience of those individuals and their families in an autobiographical program entitled, “Differently Abled, Musically Inspired: A Young Man’s Journey to Inclusion & Resilience.” Together, they have presented for corporate diversity and inclusion initiatives and at libraries for special needs groups as well as the community-at-large.

Speaking Engagements & Publications

Natalie speaks and publishes on a variety of topics, including those on the below-provided sampling.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

  • “The Potential Impact of Muldrow on Employment Cases in New Jersey,” New Jersey State Bar Association New Jersey Labor & Employment Law Quarterly 46, No. 1 (March 2025) (co-author)

Investigations

  • Privacy in Investigations, Lunch & Learn Webinar, KSBranigan Law P.C., Speaker (October 24, 2024)
  • The Ethics of Privacy in Investigations, Association of Corporate Counsel, Presenter (September 9, 2024)

Trending Topics

  • Neurodiversity, Saint Peter’s University, Speaker (Jersey City, April 2, 2025)
  • Neurodiversity in the Workplace, Lunch & Learn Webinar, KSBranigan Law P.C., Speaker (February 27, 2024)

Women in Law

  • Best Practices for Retaining NJ Women Lawyers: Where Are We Now? NJWLA, Co-speaker (Rutgers Law School, Newark, NJ, April 2010)
  • “Legal Talent at the Crossroads: Why New Jersey Women Lawyers Leave Their Law Firms and Why They Choose to Stay,” a Report by Rutgers Center for Women & Work and PAR (commissioned and published by New Jersey Commission on Gender Parity, April 2009)
  • Balanced Hours & Other Strategies for Removing Barriers to Women in the Law, NYCLA Women’s Rights Committee, Moderator (NYCLA, New York, NY, November 2006)
  • Retention Issues in the Legal Profession for Women, LexisNexis Mealey’s Teleconference, Moderator (October 2006)
  • “Women in the Legal Profession: The Quest to Overcome Barriers to Advancement Continues,” Commerce Magazine: Business of New Jersey (Summer 2006) (co-author Kirsten Scheurer Branigan, Esq.)
  • Superwoman Syndrome?, NYU Law Women & NYU Minority Pre-Law Association, Panelist (NYU School of Law, New York, NY, March 2005)

Work-Life Balance

  • “Balanced Hours 101: A New Path to Excellence,” in Raising the Bar: Real World Solutions for a Troubled Profession (American Bar Association, 2007) (co-author Cynthia Thomas Calvert, Esq.)
  • This Is How We Do It: Facilitating WorkLife Balance, PAR Annual Conference, Roundtable Facilitator (Washington, DC, March 2009)
  • Successful WorkLife Balance, LexisNexis Mealey’s Women in the Legal Profession Summit, Panelist (New York, NY, June 2008)
  • WorkLife Balance Success, LexisNexis Mealey’s Women in the Legal Profession Summit, Panelist (Philadelphia, PA, September 2007)
  • Balanced Hours: The Dollars and “Sense” of Attorney Retention, NJWLA, Organizer (Rutgers Law School, Newark, NJ, November 2006)

Leadership, Recognitions & Associations

  • NJSBA Member (2011 – present)

  • NYCLA Women’s Rights Committee Member (2005 – 2012), Co-Chair of Strategies for Success Series

  • New Jersey Women Lawyers Association Member (2006-present), Co-Director of Best Practices Committee (2006 – 2012)

  • NYSBA Committee on Women in Law (2004-2008), Co-Chair of Programming Subcommittee (2004-2006), Co-Chair of Annual Program (2005 & 2007)

  • NYU LACA (Law Alumni of Color Association), Executive Board, Co-Chair, Membership & Outreach Committee (2004 – 2006)

Community Service

  • Motivational Speaker, “Differently Abled, Musically Inspired: A Young Man’s Journey to Inclusion & Resilience”

  • Caring Kids Committee (2010 – present), Representative (2010-2012), Executive Board, Director of Peer Socialization (2012-2015), Presenter, Puppeteer

  • Millburn Township SEPAC (Special Education Parents Advisory Council) (2013-2023)

  • Sala Institute for Child and Family Centered Care for Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, NYU Langone, Family Advisory Council (2015-2021)

BAR ADMISSIONS & EDUCATION

Admitted to Practice

  • State of New Jersey (1995)

  • State of New York (1998)

  • United States District Court, District Court of New Jersey (1996)

  • United States District Court, Southern District of New York (1998)

  • United States District Court, Eastern District of New York (1998)

Education

  • New York University School of Law, J.D. (Developments Editor, Journal of International Law & Politics)
  • Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, B.A. with High Honors in Political Science (Douglass Scholar, National Hispanic Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha)
Association of Workplace Investigators
New Jersey Women Law Association
New Jersey State Bar Association