Derek J. Demeri (he/him or they/them) is a litigation associate at Zeff Law Firm, LLC. He practices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania focusing on civil rights and employment discrimination matters. Prior to joining Zeff Law Firm in 2021, Derek was a law clerk to the Honorable Arnold L. Natali, judge on the New Jersey Appellate Division, for the 2020 to 2021 term. 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 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 (ACLU)’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.
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 teenagers. 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.