Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Labor and Employment Department; Employment Litigation; Practice Group Chair Background Screening Compliance and Litigation Team.

Pamela Devata is a Labor and Employment Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP in Chicago. She’s a national authority and firm go-to for all issues related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), background screening compliance, use of criminal and credit history, and Electronic Signature issues as well online and manual employment applications. A nationally recognized employment counselor, Pam has participated in numerous interviews, speeches, webinars, and trainings to employers on the subject criminal history and credit checks as well as everything related to the background checks. She has leveraged her niche area of expertise into a thriving litigation class action practice. She counsels both employers, resellers, and consumer reporting agencies of background information on compliance requirements under FCRA and related state laws, develops procedures for appropriately handling high-volume national hiring needs, and she regularly litigates these issues on a single-plaintiff and class-wide basis throughout the country.

Ms Devata has been with Seyfarth Shaw since 2001, and made partner in 2009. Pam testified before the EEOC at a Public Meeting regarding the use of credit checks in employment in Washington, D.C. in 2010. Pam is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt and was formerly an adjunct professor of Legal Writing at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

American Bar Association; Chicago Bar Association; National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS); Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

JD, Chicago-Kent College of Law, with high honors (2001); BA, Washington University in St. Louis (1998).