Linda Kotis is a writer and attorney. Research infuses her writing to generate compelling narratives.
Linda received a JD from Vanderbilt University. She served as a Student Writing Editor on the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, one of the world's most prominent and widely cited international law journals. She also won the Johnson & Swanson Appellate Advocacy Award for best brief and appellate argument. Prior to law school, she graduated from the University of Tennessee with High Honors. Linda's professional positions include practicing law at well-known firms in Washington, DC, California, and Indiana and working for large and small nonprofits.
From May 2015 through her retirement in January 2025, she served as Counsel at Ivins, Phillips & Barker. At Ivins, Linda prepared complex estate plans and administered probate estates for high-net-worth individuals and families. She served as a member of Ivins' Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and co-created a DEI program to hire first-year summer associates committed to promoting diversity principles.
In March 2025, Linda began as Senior Counsel at DC Affordable Law Firm, a nonprofit legal services firm for underrepresented individuals. She is responsible for enhancing the capabilities of DCALF's probate and estate planning staff. In this roles, she serves as a content expert and mentors junior attorneys.
Other prior employment includes management and government relations positions at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. During her May 1991 – November 1999 tenure, Linda created and implemented a $100 million initiative announced by President Clinton and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. The nationally-acclaimed initiative offered a subsidized children's health plan and promoted legislative solutions for the uninsured. The children's health plan has since expanded from California to other Kaiser Permanente regions.
In 2025, Linda developed "Retirement Writes" for LISI's Employee Benefits and Retirement Planning Newsletter. The semi-monthly series of personal essays details Linda's experiences with retiring from her law firm and bridges her writing on legal topics to writing creative nonfiction. Members of the nationwide audience, which consists of preeminent attorneys, CPAs, and wealth management professionals, have lauded the series.
Linda is writing a memoir of her month-long trip to Greece in April 2024, her ancestral homeland. She has received two 2026 residency fellowships, one at the Mudhouse Artist Residency in Agios Ioannis, Crete, and another at Wildacres Retreat in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, to continue work on her memoir. She was also selected to the GW University Fall 2024 Jenny McKean Moore CNF Workshop with Kat Chow, award-winning author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir.
Linda's prose poem about the trip, "Megisti Hilltop," was published in Mediterranean Poetry and Filia. Her creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry appear in The Write Launch, The Owl's Rant, and Drift & Dribble Miscellany.