Derek Demeri

Derek J. Demeri (he/him or they/them) has been an attorney with Weissman & Mintz LLC since 2024 where they primarily represent labor unions in both the private and public sector, individual employees, and progressive causes that strengthen democracy, economic justice, and civil rights for all. Derek comes to this position after an extensive background in anti-discrimination work and community organizing, particularly for the LGBTQ+ and sex worker communities.

He graduated Order of the Coif from Rutgers Law School (Camden) in 2020 as an active member of the student body. During their years as a law student, Derek served as the Managing Editor of Rutgers University Law Review, competitor in the moot court appellate advocacy competition, and President of OUTLaws, among many other activities. He was also the Northeast Representative of the National Advisory Committee for Equal Justice Works, a Fellow with the Eagleton Institute of Politics and Commissioner to the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development, law clerk to the Office of the Los Angeles County Public Defender, extern to the Honorable Michael A. Shipp (District of New Jersey), and law clerk to the American Civil Liberties Union’s national LGBT & HIV Project. By the time they graduated, Derek performed 100 hours of pro bono legal services for members of the wider community. Upon graduation, they clerked for the Honorable Arnold L. Natali with the New Jersey Appellate Division and then was a litigator with Zeff Law Firm, LLC for approximately three years where he focused on plaintiff-side employment discrimination and civil rights.

Since 2023, Derek has also taught a course on the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination at Rutgers Law School as an Adjunct Professor and proudly joined the strike line during the 2023 AAUP professors’ strike. Shortly after, he was democratically elected to the Executive Board of the Rutgers Adjunct Professors’ Union where he represented the bargaining interests of approximately 1800 faculty members during the 2023-2024 term.

Prior to law school, Derek worked tirelessly as a community organizer and human rights advocate. While a student at Hawthorne High School, they formed the Gay-Straight Alliance (despite the administration’s best efforts to prevent its formation) and was a staff writer with Sex, Etc., the nation’s premier sexual health magazine for young people. As an undergraduate student, he was a Sexual & Gender Minorities Project Leader and Associate with the Center for the Study of Genocide & Human Rights, the UNESCO Chair in Genocide Prevention. In 2013, they co-founded the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance—New Jersey’s only sex worker rights organization. Through this work Derek traveled to Geneva, Switzerland where he testified before the United Nations Human Rights Council about the human rights violations that sex workers in the United States endure. They also joined the Board of Directors for the Sex Workers Outreach Project, USA, eventually becoming the organization’s Chapter Coordinator, and was a policy consultant with Best Practices Policy Project. Derek later joined the international labor union UNITE HERE! as a boycott organizer where they supported workers during the 2016 Trump Taj Mahal Casino strike in Atlantic City and coordinated “get out the vote” efforts in the Reno, Nevada region during the 2016 federal election.