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Zalkind Law, along with Public Counsel and Hutchinson Black and Cook, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of transgender female athletes challenging their states’ bans on transgender girls’ participation in girls’ athletics. The cases are West Virgina v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox. The brief, written on behalf of sixteen women’s and girls’ advocacy groups, illustrates how transgender sports bans harm all women and girls who want to participate in sports. By imposing invasive sex verification procedures on girls’ sports teams (but not boys’ teams), these laws subject girls to unnecessary and expensive medical procedures to prove they are entitled to participate in sports. These laws feed into a long history of excluding women from sports, target any girls whose bodies or talents deviate from stereotypes of femininity or girlhood, and serve as a tool for harassment and abuse of female athletes. Zalkind Law is proud to contribute our work towards the effort to achieve the dream of Title IX: one where all girls and women have access to athletic programs where they can achieve their full potential.

The brief is available here.

Attorneys Naomi Shatz, Inga Bernstein, and Tess Halpern drafted this brief on behalf of Zalkind Law.

Attorney Emma Quinn-Judge won an appeal of an assault and battery conviction in the Appeals Court. In Commonwealth v. Jeudin, the firm’s client was charged with strangulation. After the Commonwealth rested its case, Mr. Jeudin moved for–and the judge granted–a required finding of not guilty because the Commonwealth had not proved the elements of strangulation. The judge then reduced the charge to assault and battery, and the jury convicted the client of that charge.

On appeal, Attorney Quinn-Judge argued that reducing the charge to assault and battery was improper because it allowed the jury to convict Mr. Jeudin for conduct that he was not charged with in the complaint, that assault and battery has at least one element strangulation does not have, and that Mr. Jeudin was further prejudiced by this change in charge because it impacted the strategic decisions he had made with respect to his trial. The Appeals Court agreed, finding that the amendment of the charge let the jury convict the client for a crime that was not alleged in the complaint against him, based on different actions than those alleged in the complaint. The Appeals Court further found that this error prejudiced Mr. Jeudin, and reversed the judgment against him.

Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP is proud to join more than 500 other law firms in an amicus brief supporting Perkins Coie’s challenge to the Trump Administration’s executive order targeting that firm. As a firm dedicated to representing individuals who stand up to the government and large institutions, Zalkind Law applauds Perkins Coie for resisting the administration’s attempts to bully and threaten law firms into abandoning the core values of the American justice system.

Read the full brief here

View the list of law firms here