Neera Ketoul was a female Illyrian lawyer who lived in a colony on the Vaultera Nebula during the mid-23rd century.
Ketoul was a childhood friend of Una Chin-Riley. They became estranged after the Chin-Riley family moved to the non-Illyrian settlement on the colony. Her cousin Ivan was subjected to persecution after his Illyrian ancestry was discovered, and he was arrested at the age of ten, along with his parents.
Ketoul regularly engaged in civil rights cases against the United Federation of Planets, seeking to overturn their laws against genetic engineering. In the period from 2258 to 2259, she had engaged in ten such cases, all of them either overturned or dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
In 2259, Captain Christopher Pike sought Ketoul's counsel in representing Chin-Riley during her Starfleet court martial. (SNW: "Ad Astra per Aspera")