Andrea Kramer

Andrea S. (Andie) Kramer is the founding member of the boutique Chicago law firm, ASKramer Law LLC. Previously, she served as a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and at Ungaretti & Harris LLP. Andie counsels clients on a wide range of legal issues that often relate to complex trading operations; the taxation and regulation of financial products and emerging asset classes of all kinds; taxation of both traditional and alternative sources of energy production and transmission; corporate governance; and tax controversy matters. She is co-author of the 4,000-page reference, Financial Products: Taxation, Regulation, and Design (4th ed.), which has been updated annually for more than three decades. Andie has written and edited hundreds of professional and business publications in her career. She holds a BA summa cum laude from the University of Illinois and a JD cum laude from Northwestern University. A dedicated educator, Andie previously served as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and has delivered professional training courses to many audiences, including specialists at the U.S. Treasury and the IRS for more than two decades.

Andie brings a 35-year background working as a diversity advocate—specifically, encouraging the growth of all professionals who wish to seek, assume, and retain positions at the highest levels of organizational leadership, management, and asset control. She is a prodigious author and speaker on topics that relate to women in the workplace. Andie has written hundreds of articles and blog posts on gender equality, and she has spoken at diversity conferences, trade association meetings, professional service firms, multinational corporations, and on podcasts and webinars. With her husband, Al Harris, Andie has coauthored three related books. Their latest offering, Beyond Bias: The PATH to End Gender Inequality at Work was published by Nicholas Brealey in May 2023.

Throughout her career, Andie has been proactive in championing several women’s mentoring programs—receiving major public and professional recognition for these efforts. More recently, Andie has been working to ensure that DE&I programs do not remain constrained and segregated as feel-good initiatives within organizations; rather, that their scopes expand to ensure all employees can consistently access and benefit from opportunities that are on a par with one another. Andie now focuses efforts primarily on the structural challenges that block true systemic change at organizations. Her current work seeks to ensure that we collaborate in developing more thoughtful diversity workplace policies and procedures so that organizations are held to account through effective implementation frameworks that have in place enterprise-wide operational, financial, and risk management controls.

Generously philanthropic and civically engaged, Andie is the recipient of the “Unsung Heroine Award” from the Cook County Board of Commissioners and the “National Public Service Award” from the American Bar Association for her public service and pro bono activities. She founded and serves on the boards of a number of nonprofit and professional associations in the Chicago area; notably, TWTC, and of its predecessor organization, The Women’s Treatment Center . . . helping provide housing and healthcare support and assistance for the city’s most vulnerable residents.