Jemi Goulian Lucey, a partner in the firm’s Employment Law and Litigation Departments, will be a panelist for the live webinar “Employment Discrimination Claims After Bostock v. Clayton County,” to be presented at the New Jersey State Bar Association’s (NJSBA) Virtual Annual Meeting on Thursday, May 20, 2021 from 10:35am – 11:50am. The presentation is part of the LGBTQ Rights and Labor Law Employment Tracks.

Until June 2020, the legal landscape for New Jersey employees and employers involved in disputes over alleged discrimination on the basis of an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression had been largely unchanged for more than a dozen years:  the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) explicitly protected employees from such discrimination, but federal employment law—specifically, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)—did not. Then, in the landmark case of Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender status was impermissible discrimination “because of … sex,” and thus prohibited by Title VII. This program will discuss the implications of the Bostock opinion for New Jersey practitioners against the backdrop of the NJLAD’s already expansive employee protections. In analyzing how the decision impacts employment discrimination issues in the litigation and counseling contexts, the panelists will explore what important questions remain unanswered.

Ms. Lucey is a trial attorney who focuses her practice on employment, higher education and professional negligence matters. She represents private and public entities, including institutions of higher learning, in employment discrimination and retaliation actions, professional negligence cases, Title IX claims, and business disputes. She is Co-Chair of the firm’s Higher Education Practice Group.

The agenda for the annual meeting and more details can be found on the NJSBA Annual Meeting page.