The Massachusetts Bar Association welcomes back our Labor & Employment
members to the 44th Annual Labor & Employment Spring Conference. This year’s
conference will be an in-person event at Suffolk University Law School on
Wednesday, May 24. Faculty presenters include a number of judges and
accomplished attorneys who have provided significant thought leadership in the
areas of labor and employment law.
This year's keynote speaker will be Jocelyn Samuels, vice chair of the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Samuels was designated as EEOC vice
chair by President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, 2021. She joined the EEOC as a
commissioner on Oct. 14, 2020, and on July 14, 2021, was confirmed for a second
term ending in 2026.
Immediately prior to joining the EEOC, Samuels served as the executive
director and Roberta A. Conroy Scholar of Law at the Williams Institute at the
UCLA School of Law, focusing on legal and social science research on issues
related to sexual and gender minorities.
From August 2014 through January 2017, she was the director of the Office for
Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, where she
oversaw civil rights enforcement with respect to hospitals, health care
providers, insurers and human services agencies. In that role, she spearheaded
development of regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act
— the first broad-based federal law to prohibit sex discrimination in health
care. Among other advances, those groundbreaking regulations protected LGBTQ
persons from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity.
A networking reception will follow programming.
Full conference agenda to be announced. Registration for the conference
is required by 9 a.m. on Monday, May 22.
Faculty:
Dennis M. Coyne, Esq., Conference Co-chair
McDonald Lamond Canzoneri, Southborough
Michelle De Oliveira, Esq., Conference Co-chair
Kenney & Sams PC, Southborough
Emilie Grossman, Esq., Conference Co-chair
Rosen & Goyal PC, Andover
Richard S. Loftus, Esq., Conference Co-chair
Hirsch Roberts Weinstein LLP, Boston
Jocelyn Samuels, Keynote speaker
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington