Ben Aaron Labor Law Lecture

 

Monday, October 26, 2009

6:00 - Registration
6:30 - Dinner
7:00 pm - Program

Biltmore Hotel, 506 S Grand Avenue, Los Angeles

 

Phyllis Cheng

“Department of Fair Employment and Housing: The canary in a mineshaft for employment law”

Presented by Phyllis Cheng, Director, California Department of Fair Employment & Housing

 

Presentation slides

At this half-century mark of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the growth of the robust employment bar has made the litigation of workplace discrimination one of the most active and sophisticated practice areas. Is the Department of Fair Employment (DFEH) obsolete? Find out why the DFEH is the canary in a mineshaft for employment law.

About the Speaker

Phyllis W. Cheng is Director of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in January 2008, she heads the largest state civil rights agency in the nation. Immediately prior to her current position, Ms. Cheng was of counsel at the Los Angeles office of Littler Mendelson, the national employment and labor law firm representing management clients. She was formerly a senior appellate court attorney to the Honorable Laurie D. Zelon, Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Seven. She was also a deputy attorney general in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Department of Justice. As a former associate at Hadsell & Stormer, a civil rights and human rights firm, she practiced employment discrimination law representing plaintiffs. Ms. Cheng also served two terms on the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Cheng founded and directed a citizens’ commission to address sex discrimination, was Title IX coordinator, and monitored a Title VII consent decree promoting women into administration at the Los Angeles Unified School District. She was responsible for the passage of California’s version of the Title IX law prohibiting sex discrimination in education. Active with the California State Bar, Ms. Cheng has been a member of its Committee on Bar Examiners, and served on the executive committees of the Labor & Employment Law and Public Law Sections. She is currently launching a new Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Subsection under the State Bar’s Real Property Law Section. Ms. Cheng received her B.A. and M.Ed. degrees from UCLA, her Ph.D. degree from the University of Southern California, and her J.D. degree from Southwestern University School of Law. She is an immigrant from Hong Kong and a native speaker of Chinese in three dialects.

 

This event is sponsored by the Labor and Employment Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Asian-American Studies Center, Center for the Study of Women, Department of Asian-American Studies, Department of Women’s Studies, UCLA Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty.