Jennifer C. Pizer

Jennifer C. Pizer is Senior Counsel and Director, Project on Law & Policy at Lambda Legal.  During 2011 and 2012, she was Legal Director and Senior Scholar of Law at the Williams Institute, an academic research center on sexual orientation law and public policy at UCLA School of Law.  While at UCLA, Pizer authored model legislation concerning marriage for same-sex couples and amicus briefs and policy reports addressing family rights of LGBT people, the needs of LGBT students, and employment discrimination.  Before joining UCLA, Pizer was Marriage Project Director at Lambda Legal, where she was co-counsel in numerous cases challenging state restrictions on marriage, the federal “Defense of Marriage Act,” refusals of family health insurance, denials of parenting rights, and unequal access to medical care. Pizer also has co-authored numerous amicus briefs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, including most recently to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Pizer frequently advises policymakers about LGBT issues and has taught at USC Law School, Loyola Law School, and Whittier Law School in addition to UCLA.  She has received numerous community service and professional achievement awards, including being named seven times among the top women litigators in California.  She is a graduate of Harvard College and NYU School of Law, where she was a Hays Fellow, Senior Research Editor of the Review of Law and Social Change, and co-chair of Lesbian & Gay Law Students (which preceded OUTLaw).

Jennifer Pizer is the author of How Has Perry Affected Other Marriage-Rights Strategies? Reflections on a Silver Anniversary and the Golden Rule.

Paul M. Smith

Paul M. Smith is a partner in Jenner & Block’s Washington, DC office.  At Jenner, he is the Chair of the Appellate & Supreme Court Practice and Co-Chair of the Election Law, and First Amendment Practices.  Mr. Smith has argued fourteen Supreme Court cases, including most recently Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n, involving the First Amendment as applied to video games, and Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark gay rights case.   He also represents various clients in trial and appellate cases involving commercial issues, the First Amendment, intellectual property, civil rights, and election law.

Mr. Smith graduated from Amherst College and Yale Law School and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.  He is a member of the ABA House of Delegates.  He is also a member of, and the former Chair of, the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society.  In 2010, the National Law Journal named him one of the 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Past Decade.  That same year, he received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities for his work promoting civil rights and civil liberties .  In 2012 he received the D.C. Bar’s own Thurgood Marshall Award.

Paul Smith is the author of The Perry Litigation and the Changing Political Landscape for Marriage Equality.

Kenji Yoshino

Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at the NYU School of Law. Prior to moving to NYU, he was the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor of Law and Deputy Dean of Intellectual Life at Yale Law School, where he taught from 1998 to 2008. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned his law degree at Yale Law School. A specialist in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, and law and literature, Yoshino has published in major academic journals, such as The Columbia Law Review, The Harvard Law Review, The Stanford Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal. He has also written extensively in other popular venues, such as The L.A. Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. His award-winning book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, was published by Random House in 2006. His second book A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Play’s Teach Us About Justice was published in 2011 by HarperCollins. He is currently working on a book on the Prop 8 litigation over the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Professor Yoshino is the author of Why the Court Can Strike Down Marriage Restrictions Under Rational-Basis Review.