Joseph M. Sellers
Joseph Sellers, a Partner at the Firm and head of the Civil Rights & Employment practice group, joined Cohen Milstein in 1997.
Mr. Sellers has represented victims of discrimination and other illegal employment practices individually and through class actions. He has tried several civil rights class actions to judgment before juries and has argued more than 25 appeals in the federal and state appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court. He has served as class counsel, and typically lead counsel, in more than 30 civil rights and employment class actions.
Those cases have included: Beck. v. Boeing Company (W.D. Wash.), which included a class of more than 28,000 women employees at Boeing facilities in Washington state alleging sex discrimination in pay and overtime decisions; Conway, et al. v. Deutsch (E.D. Va.), for a class of all female undercover case officers at the CIA alleging sex discrimination in promotions and job assignments; Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (N.D. Cal.), where the Court has certified the largest class in such a case: more than 1.5 million women employees at Wal-Mart stores, alleging sex discrimination in promotions and pay decisions; Johnson, et al. v. Freeh (D.D.C.), for a class of African-American FBI special agents alleging racial discrimination in promotion and job assignments; Keepseagle v. Venamen (D.D.C.), for a class of Native American farmers and ranchers denied equal credit opportunities by USDA; Neal v. Director, D.C Dept. of Corrections (D.D.C.), the first sexual harassment class action tried to a jury, for a class of women correctional employees and women and men subject to retaliation at the D.C. Department of Corrections; and Trotter, et al. v. Perdue Farms (D.Del.), for a company-wide collective action brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act for violations of federal wage and hour law.
Throughout his career, Mr. Sellers has also been active in legislative matters. He has testified more than 20 times before Committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives on various civil rights and employment matters. He worked on the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Mr. Sellers has trained lawyers at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on the trial of civil rights cases and has lectured extensively throughout the country on various civil rights and employment topics. He was an Adjunct Professor at the Washington College of Law at American University, where he taught Employment Discrimination law, and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a course on Professional Responsibility.
He served on the Clinton/Gore Transition Team in 1992 and 1993. He headed the teams reviewing the operations of the EEOC, the Office of the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and various sections of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He also served as a Co-Chair of the Task Force of the D.C. Circuit on Gender, Race and Ethnic Bias and was appointed by panels of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
At the request of the Ford Foundation and the American Bar Association, Mr. Sellers delivered a series of lectures and designed and delivered a mock trial on civil rights law to Chinese judges, lawyers and government officials.
Mr. Sellers has been recognized as one of the top lawyers in Washington and as one 10 the top plaintiffs’ employment lawyers in the country He is a professionally-trained mediator and has served as the President of the Washington Council of Lawyers.
Prior to 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 received a J.D. from Case Western Reserve School of Law (1979), where he served as Research Editor of the Case Western Reserve Law Review, and a B.A. in American History and Literature from Brown University (1975).
Mr. Sellers is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
Contact: jsellers@cmht.com
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