Valeria M. Pelet del Toro

Valeria represents companies and individuals facing high-stakes litigation and government investigations. She also helps clients manage litigation risks related to data breaches and privacy issues. Valeria maintains an active pro bono practice that includes impact litigation, direct legal services and appellate advocacy.

Valeria’s representative matters:

• Defended Marsh McLennan in a class action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York arising out of a cyberattack
• Conducted an internal investigation for a computing company concerning potential theft of trade secrets by a former employee
• Represented a large, privately held media company in a Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust investigation
• Drafted and filed amicus briefs in various federal courts
• Represented a global telecommunications company in a DOJ criminal investigation
• Represented a same-sex couple in a discrimination case before the New York State Division of Human Rights

Valeria clerked for US District Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Before joining Cooley, Valeria began her legal career at a boutique litigation firm in New York City.

Valeria graduated from Yale Law School, where she was a speechwriter for Dean Heather K. Gerken, an editor for the Yale Law Journal and co-editor-in-chief for the Yale Law & Policy Review. She also was a Coker Fellow in Constitutional Law, a student attorney for the Ethics Bureau at Yale and a member of the Latinx Law Students Association.

Valeria’s writing has been published in the Yale Law Journal, The Federal Lawyer magazine and other popular media outlets. Her Yale Law Journal note on the history of civil rights litigation in Puerto Rico was reprinted in the 35th volume of the Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Annual Handbook (Steven Saltzman ed., 2019) and translated into Spanish in the 56th volume of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico Law Review (2022).

Before law school, Valeria was an editorial fellow and freelance writer at The Atlantic and interned at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.