Developing a Civil Rights Claim: The Ten Questions Practitioners Need To Answer

Faculty:

Scott Michelman is a Staff Attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.  He has previously taught civil rights litigation at the Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice.  Both at the ACLU and Center for Social Justice, Mr. Michelman's docket has consisted entirely of civil rights litigation, including cases involving post-September 11 abuse of executive power, racial profiling, political protest, police misconduct, immigrants' rights, freedom of the press, unreasonable search and seizure, religious freedom, and enforcement of federal statutory rights.  He has argued before both appellate and trial courts at the state and federal levels.  Mr. Michelman graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, and went on to clerk for the Honorable Betty B. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Before law school, Mr. Michelman designed and taught courses on American politics and law at Eton College in Windsor, England.

Jennifer C. Pizer is Senior Counsel and Marriage Project Director for Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV.  

Ms. Pizer has been repeatedly named one of the top women litigators in California by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal, and has received numerous professional achievement and community service awards.

Based in Lambda Legal's Western Regional Office in Los Angeles, Ms. Pizer has been active in multiple civil rights based litigation cases.  She served as co-counsel in the intensive marriage equality litigation in both Washington State and California, which led to the historic In re Marriage Cases victory in May 2008.  She is co-counsel in Strauss v. Horton, the LGBT community's challenge to Proposition 8, the November 2008 ballot measure that purported to change California's Constitution to eliminate gay and lesbian couples' fundamental right to marry.

Ms. Pizer also handles cases to end sexual orientation discrimination in employment, education, health care and housing and advance domestic partner protections and the rights of lesbian and gay parents. She represents Guadalupe Benitez in litigation against her former physicians for withholding medical treatment based on their religious objection to treating lesbian patients the way they treat other patients, resulting in the California Supreme Court's August 2008 decision that constitutional protections for religious liberty do not authorize health professionals to violate the state's civil rights law.

Outside California, Ms. Pizer has helped secure victories that have advanced LGBT civil rights in Washington, Oregon, Montana and Alaska. She is a frequent advocate for LGBT family equality in academic and public settings and to the media.

Ms. Pizer has served as an adjunct professor at USC Law School, Loyola Law School and Whittier Law School. Prior to joining Lambda Legal, she was associated with Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP in San Francisco for five years. Before entering private practice, Ms. Pizer was legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League and served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Ann Aldrich of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. She is a 1987 graduate of New York University School of Law and a 1982 honors graduate of Harvard College.