Celebrity Friday: Jenny Pizer Leaves Lambda Legal For UCLA Law

Jennifer Pizer

The longtime Marriage Director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Jennifer C. Pizer, has decided to jump ship to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA Law School, where she will become Legal Director and The Arnold D. Kassoy Senior Scholar of Law.

In this newly endowed position at the Williams Institute, Pizer will lead the Institute's projects related to legal research and analysis on LGBT issues.  Her work will include conducting legal research, writing articles and commentary, drafting amicus briefs for key court cases, drafting and providing testimony for legislation, organizing and conducting education programs for judges and lawyers, and teaching courses at UCLA. 

Pizer is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law.  After law school she served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Ann Aldrich of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, was Legal Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, and practiced intellectual property and business torts litigation with Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP in San Francisco.  She comes to the Williams Institute from a very successful career at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she was Senior Counsel and the National Marriage Project Director.    

As an Adjunct Professor, Pizer has taught courses on sexual orientation law at USC Law School, Loyola Law School, and Whittier Law School.  Her publications include, “The Effects of Unequal Access to Health Insurance for Same-sex Couples in California” published in Health Affairs 29, No. 8 (2010), with Ninez Ponce, Susan Cochran, and Vickie Mays; “Facial Discrimination: Darlene Jespersen’s Fight Against the Barbi-fication of Bartenders,” published in Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, Vol. 14, Issue 1 (2007); “Arresting ‘The Plague of Violence’: California’s Unruh Act Requires School Officials to Act Against Anti-Gay Peer Abuse,” published in 12Stanford Law & Policy Review 63 (2001), with Doreena Wong.   She has commented extensively on LGBT legal developments for both leading national media and the legal press.

Congratulations, Jenny!