Fairness in the Courts

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Since 1980, Legal Momentum has been the national leader in the effort to eliminate gender bias in the courts.

We understand gender bias as arising from stereotypical thinking about the nature and roles of women and men, devaluation of what is perceived as women’s work, a lack of accurate, factual knowledge about the social and economic realities of women’s and men’s lives, and the practice of holding women and men to different standards for the same behavior. We confront gender bias in two ways: through our award-winning National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) and through impact litigation.

Legal Impact Strategies

National Judicial Education Program

NJEP has presented judicial education programs for federal, state, local and tribal judges for 40 years. These programs prompted state supreme courts and federal circuits across the country to appoint high level task forces to investigate gender bias in their own court systems and recommend reforms. NJEP advised almost all of them. As a nationally-recognized voice in the judicial education sphere, NJEP has published extensively in periodicals such as the Judges’ Journal and Judicature, among others, and developed an extensive library of resources and model judicial education curricula as well as two interactive web courses.

Visit the National Judicial Education Program 

Web Courses

NJEP developed two free, comprehensive online web courses with funding from the State Justice Institute and the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Both courses provide trauma-informed education about sexual abuse, sexual assault and the intersection of sexual abuse and domestic violence. The goal is to build the capacity of judges, court personnel, victim advocates, law enforcement, Sexual Assault Nurse Examinations, and other justice system professionals to respond effectively and fairly to these cases.

Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse Course

Victim Adocate Training Course

Litigation

Among our wide breadth of impact litigation affecting gender equality, we regularly bring cases that involve gender bias in the courts, as well participating in cases as amicus curiae ("friend of the court"). This has included cases in which women were denied advancement in the workplace based on sex stereotypes and cases in which courts issued rulings grounded in myths and misconceptions about sexual violence.

Read our amicus briefS On Fairness in the Courts

Read about our Legal Impact

 

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