Webinar: Holding Our Ground: Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights at the Front Lines

While historically, much focus on civil rights for LGBTQ+ persons has focused on the Supreme Court and national debates—the raft of measures coming out of state legislatures attacking various aspects of LGBTQ+ personhood are being challenged locally in federal district court and circuit court actions across the country. This webinar will focus on the experiences, strategies, and mechanism of representing clients in such actions in private, pro bono and public interest practices.

Presented by the Civil Rights Law Section and the LGBTQ+ Law Section

About the Presenters

Wesley D. Bizzell, Senior Assistant General Counsel, Altria; Past President, National LGBTQ+ Bar Association

Wesley Bizzell serves as Senior Assistant General Counsel and Managing Director of Political Law & Ethics Programs for Altria Client Services. Overseeing a comprehensive compliance system covering the regulation of government affairs, Mr. Bizzell provides advice and guidance on political law compliance for more than 75 jurisdictions. Mr. Bizzell also heads the legal team that supports Altria’s public policy activities, providing services related to legislative and regulatory drafting and interpretation.

Mr. Bizzell is an authority on political law compliance, serving as co-chair of the Conference Board’s Committee on Corporate Political Spending, a committee of leading American corporations dedicated to education and engagement on issues of corporate political activity. For four years, he served as co-chair of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws’ (“COGEL”) annual conference. In 2018, COGEL awarded Mr. Bizzell its highest honor, the COGEL Award, for making a “demonstrable and positive contribution to the fields of campaign finance, ethics, elections, lobbying and freedom of information over a significant period of time.”

Previously, Mr. Bizzell was an attorney in Winston & Strawn LLP’s Federal Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs Practice Group. His career also includes more than six years on Capitol Hill, where he served as an aide to Arkansas Senators David Pryor and Dale Bumpers.

Mr. Bizzell is extremely active in promoting diversity and inclusion within the legal and corporate communities. He is a founding member and serves on the steering committee for Altria’s LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group and is the immediate past president of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, after serving a two-year term. He has been named by London’s Financial Times (2017 and 2018) and Yahoo Finance (2019 and 2020) as one of the 100 worldwide OUTstanding Leading LGBT+ Corporate Executives, and Chambers and Partners also named him the 2019 LGBT+ Equality Lawyer of the Year for his dedication and commitment to LGBT diversity programs and his efforts to advance LGBT+ professionals in the law. In 2021, he was appointed to serve as a commissioner for the American Bar Association’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Commission.

Mr. Bizzell graduated with a B.A. in Justice, magna cum laude, from the American University in Washington, D.C. and received a Master of Social Work with a focus in public policy from the Catholic University of America. He received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor for the Georgetown Law Journal.

Jay Kaplan, LGBT Project Staff Attorney, ACLU of Michigan

Jay Kaplan has been the staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan’s LGBT Project since its founding in 2001.

He has worked on cases including challenging undercover sting operations targeting gay men, fighting Michigan’s constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, defending the validity of second parent adoptions granted in Michigan, and recently advocating for a transgender high school student to be able to run for prom court. Jay was honored with the 2006 Unsung Hero Award from the Michigan State Bar and the 2010 Virginia Uribe Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association (NEA).

Robin B. Wagner, Partner, Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers PC; and Chair, FBA Civil Rights Law Section

Robin Wagner is a partner of the Detroit-region law firm, Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers. She works exclusively on plaintiff-side civil rights matters, primarily in the areas of employment and housing discrimination. She clerked for the Hon. Judith E. Levy of the Eastern District of Michigan and the Hon. Michael H. Dolinger, ret. Magistrate Judge, Southern District of New York. Robin has written on employment and housing discrimination law for various professional journals, including the Michigan Bar Journal, the journal of the Michigan Association of Justice, and of course, our section’s own Civil Rights Insider.

Registration

Registration Fees

Registration for this event is now closed.

• FBA Member: $0
• Nonmember: $75

Live Captioning: Closed captioning is available for all virtual webcasts.

Cancellation Policy: No refunds will be made for cancellations received after the close of business on June 15, 2022. No-shows will be billed. Substitutions may be made at any time upon notification. Please contact meetings@fedbar.org with cancellation and/or substitution requests.

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CLE

CLE: 1.0 CLE Credit

CLE Credit will be processed/reported approximately 4-6 weeks after the event date and available for credit in states that allow credit for live webinar presentations. You must attend the live broadcast, answer engagement polls, and accurately enter your bar number in our database to receive credit. Certificates and required documentation for self-reporting states will be issued via email, upon state bar approval. Thank you in advance for your patience, as state bars are experiencing significant delays with virtual program processing.

Click Here for more information on CLE Attendance and Reporting.

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If you have any questions regarding this program, please contact Ariel White, Program Coordinator awhite@fedbar.org