Vara Lyons

Vara Lyons is a senior associate in the Seattle office of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP. Her practices include Consumer Protection Class Actions, False Claims/Whistleblower Law, Shareholder Rights/Corporate Governance, Antitrust & Global Competition, Environmental Law, Privacy & Intellectual Property, and Securities/Financial Fraud.

Vara is a dedicated litigator whose career has focused on fighting for underrepresented and marginalized populations. She is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and The George Washington University Law School. During law school, Vara was a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Journal and served as a legal fellow for Senator Claire McCaskill (MO) and the National Archives. Vara began her legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, NY, where she served in the specialized Human Trafficking Unit and prosecuted high-level felonies throughout the borough. Vara then spent two years in private practice working on behalf of sexual abuse victims through litigation under New York’s Child Victims Act, Title IX, and federal trafficking statutes. Vara moved home to her native state of Mississippi in 2021 to serve as the ACLU of Mississippi’s policy counsel during the Dobbs litigation, where she fought for advances in reproductive justice and voting rights legislation. During her time at the ACLU, Vara authored a seminal policy paper on maternal health and made numerous international and local media appearances, including interviews with The Financial Times and the BBC. Vara was a featured speaker at the 2023 Mississippi Psychological Association Conference, where she presented on the intersection of mental health and reproductive rights.