Lenora M. Lapidus and Emily J. Martin

Lenora M. Lapidus is the Director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. She litigates constitutional and other gender discrimination cases in federal and state courts throughout the country, advocates before international human rights fora, engages in public policy efforts, and speaks on gender equity issues in the media and to the public. Her work focuses on economic justice, violence against women, women and girls in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and educational equity. Prior to becoming Director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, Ms. Lapidus served as the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey; held the John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at Gibbons, in NJ; was a Staff Attorney Fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights in NY; and clerked for the Honorable Richard Owen, in the U.S. District Court, for the Southern District of New York. In addition to her litigation and public policy experience, Ms. Lapidus has taught Gender and the Law, Procreation and the Law, and Women and Public Policy as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School and Rutgers University, and taught in the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers Law School. She has published law review articles and book chapters on gender equality, constitutional law, welfare, reproductive rights, capital punishment; and child custody. Ms. Lapidus has received several awards including the Wasserstein Fellowship from Harvard Law School for outstanding public interest lawyers. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and summa cum laude from Cornell University.

Emily J. Martin is the Deputy Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Women's Rights Project, where she has worked since 2001. The ACLU Women's Rights Project, founded in 1972 by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and based in the national ACLU’s New York office, has been a leader in the legal battles to ensure women’s full equality in American society and focuses on violence against women, women and employment, equal educational opportunities, and women and the criminal justice system. At the ACLU Women's Rights Project, Emily Martin works on a variety of litigation, including cases challenging gender discrimination in education, housing, employment, welfare administration, and public accommodations, with a special emphasis on the needs of low-income women and women of color. Ms. Martin received a B.A. with highest distinction from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from Yale Law School. She clerked for Judge T.S. Ellis, III, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and for Judge Wilfred Feinberg, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As a recipient of the Rita Charmatz Davidson Fellowship through the Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, she previously worked as counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, in Washington, D.C., where she undertook legislative advocacy and policy analysis on issues affecting women's employment and women's economic security.