Overview
Zoë Appler’s practice includes representing and advising both private and public sector clients on labor, employment, and education law. Zoë has significant experience in matters relating to discrimination and harassment claims, wage and hour disputes, employee hiring and discipline, and employment-related arbitrations and mediation.
Before joining Franczek, Zoë cultivated extensive experience representing clients in litigation matters across civil practice areas, in both state and federal courts. Outside the courtroom, she prides herself on her work in the classroom as an Adjunct Professor of Law in Advanced Trial Advocacy at the Temple Beasley School of Law.
Zoë is a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law, where she was Captain of the National Trial Advocacy Team and a Notes and Comments Editor on the Chicago-Kent Law Review. As a law student, she won several national trial advocacy competitions and was named Baylor School of Law’s Top Gun Champion in 2021, the most prestigious award in law school trial advocacy. Zoë also worked as a teaching assistant for multiple law school courses, including Evidence, Criminal Procedure, and Intensive Trial Advocacy. While attending Chicago-Kent, she also earned five separate CALI Awards for Academic Excellence (ADR in the Workplace, Criminal Law, Trial Evidence, Criminal Litigation 1, and Intensive Trial Advocacy). Before attending law school, Zoë worked in domestic policy research on Capitol Hill for several years and received her Bachelor of Arts in political science from the American University in Washington, D.C.
Licensed to practice law in Illinois on both the state and federal levels, she is a member of the American Bar Association, Women's Bar Association of Illinois, Chicago Bar Association, Illinois State Bar Association, National Association of Legal Advocacy Educators, and the American Mock Trial Association.