Joseph Sellers

Meeting of July 18, 2012 – Public Input into the Development of EEOC's Strategic Enforcement Plan

Joseph Sellers, Esq. has been a Partner at the Firm and head of the Civil Rights & Employment practice group at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll since 1997 when he joined the firm.

Mr. Sellers has represented victims of discrimination and other illegal employment practices in individual as well as class actions. He has tried several class actions to judgment before juries and has argued more than 30 appeals in federal and state appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court where he argued Walmart Stores v. Dukes. In more than 30 years of legal practice, he has served as lead or co-lead counsel in more than 60 civil rights and employment class or collective actions where he has represented workers and others who claim to have been victims of discrimination or other forms of corporate or governmental misconduct.

Mr. Sellers has testified more than 20 times before Committees of the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on civil rights and employment matters. He worked on passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009. Sponsored by the ABA and the Ford Foundation, Mr. Sellers also led a delegation from this country to China where they presented to Regional Court Judges, Justices of the Supreme People's Court and members of the national legislature several mock trials of EEO claims and lectures on fundamental principles of civil rights law, class action litigation, civil rights testing and basic principles of civil litigation.  Before joining Cohen Milstein, Mr. Sellers served as head of the Employment Discrimination Project of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs for over 15 years.  Mr. Sellers is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.