Jenny Pizer is Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the CEO for Lambda Legal, the country’s oldest and largest legal organization representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights movement through impact litigation, policy advocacy, and public education. Since joining Lambda Legal’s staff in 1996, Jenny has been a leading national voice for ending discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in employment, education, health care, and family law including marriage, and against the use of religion and free speech rights to license discrimination. She has represented same-sex couples, parents, and LGBTQ+ individuals in successful litigation seeking the freedom to marry, other recognition of family relationships, and protection against discrimination in many settings. She also has worked closely with elected officials and community groups on policy reforms ranging from comprehensive nondiscrimination protections to civil union and domestic partner protections, and for marriage equality in state statutes and constitutions. In her current role, Jenny focuses on challenging the multi-pronged attack the second Trump administration has launched against the LGBTQ+ community, especially against transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, and on the continuing misuse of First Amendment rights to excuse discrimination.

Jenny served as Lambda Legal’s Chief Legal Officer from 2022 to 2025. Before that, as Director of Law and Policy, she expanded the organization’s policy program to include intensive support for state leaders fighting anti-LGBTQ+ legislative attacks and pursuing affirmative protections. Together with Professor Ellen Ann Andersen, she co-authored Making the Case for Equality: 50 Years of Legal Milestones in LGBTQ History, a visually captivating and accessible volume published in 2024 by Monacelli Press to celebrate Lambda Legal’s fiftieth anniversary.

Jenny has taught law school courses, given presentations for the U.S. State Department, and continues to consult with advocates seeking protections for LGBTQ+ people in other countries. From 2011-2012, Jenny served as Legal Director of the Williams Institute, a public policy research center at UCLA School of Law. She previously directed Lambda Legal’s Marriage Project and initiated its focus on healthcare fairness. Before joining Lambda Legal, Jenny was in private law practice in San Francisco, served as Legal Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL, n/k/a Reproductive Freedom for All), and clerked for Judge Ann Aldrich, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. She is a graduate of NYU School of Law and Harvard/Radcliffe College.

Jenny has received many community service and professional achievement awards, including from the American Bar Association, NYU School of Law, the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, the California Assembly, the City of Los Angeles, API Equality-LA, Equality California, the Greater Seattle Business Association, and OGALLA (the LGBTQ Bar Association of Oregon). She has been named among California’s top women lawyers seven times.

Selected publications:

Jennifer C. Pizer with Ellen Ann Andersen, Making the Case for Equality: 50 Years of Legal Milestones in LGBTQ History (Monacelli Press, October 2024).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Anything Less Is Less than Equal:  The Structure and Goals of the Equality Act, and with Richard Foltin, Introduction and Conclusion to the ABA Civil Rights & Social Justice Section’s Human Rights magazine double issue entitled, Intersection of LGBTQ Rights and Religious Freedom (published July 2022).

Jennifer C. Pizer, It’s Not About the Cake: On Not “Altaring” the Public Marketplace, chapter in Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018, based on presentation given at Yale Law School).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Religious Freedom and LGBT Rights Continue to Coexist, GP Solo (magazine of the ABA Solo, Small Firm & General Practice Division, Jan./Feb. 2017).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Working While LGBT: Current issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender non-conformity discrimination on the job (based on presentation given at Employment Law, Bargaining Power, and the Gap, a Whittier Law School symposium on workers’ rights).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Navigating the Minefield: Hobby Lobby and Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights, 9 Harvard Law & Policy Review 701 (2015).

Jennifer C. Pizer, How Has Perry Affected Other Marriage-Rights Litigation Strategies?  Reflections on a Silver Anniversary and the Golden Rule, NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 37, Number 1 (2013).

Jennifer C. Pizer, From Outlaws to In-Laws: Legal Standing of LGBT Americans’ Family Relationships, in The LGBT Casebook (eds. Petros Levounis, M.D., Jack Drescher, M.D. and Mary E. Barber, M.D., American Psychiatric Publishing, 2012).

Jennifer C. Pizer, with Brad Sears, Christy Mallory, and Nan D. Hunter, Evidence of Persistent and Pervasive Workplace Discrimination Against LGBT People, 45 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 715 (2012).

Jennifer C. Pizer, with Sheila James Kuehl, Same-Sex Couples and Marriage: Model Legislation for Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry or All Couples to Form a Civil Union (Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, Aug. 2012).

Jennifer C. Pizer, with Craig J. Konnoth, Christy Mallory, and Brad Sears, Extending Medicaid Long-Term Care Impoverishment Protections to Same-Sex Couples (Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, June 2012).

Jennifer C. Pizer, with M.V. Lee Badgett, Ilan H. Meyer, Gary J. Gates, Nan D. Hunter and Brad Sears, Written Testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary for its Hearing on S.598, The Respect for Marriage Act: Assessing the Impact of DOMA on American Families (Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, July 2011).

Jennifer C. Pizer, with Ninez A. Ponce, Susan D. Cochran and Vickie M. Mays, The Effects Of Unequal Access To Health Insurance For Same-Sex Couples In California, HEALTH AFFAIRS 29, NO. 8 (2010).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Facial Discrimination:  Darlene Jespersen’s Fight Against the Barbi-fication of Bartenders, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, Vol. 14, Issue 1 (January 2007).

Jennifer C. Pizer, The Legal Rights of Registered Domestic Partners in California (2006 edition, published by the California State Bar).

Jennifer C. Pizer, Your Rights & Resources (2006 edition, published by the California State Bar, Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination).

Jennifer C. Pizer and Doreena Wong, Arresting ‘The Plague of Violence’: California’s Unruh Act Requires School Officials to Act Against Anti-Gay Peer Abuse, 12 Stanford Law & Policy Review 63 (Winter 2001).