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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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2024-01-01 |
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| Name | Iris Halpern |
| Address |
, Colorado , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | BrentinCO |
| Last Modifed | BrentinCO
Dec 27, 2024 02:42pm |
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| Info | Iris Halpern is a partner at Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC. Iris has been tenaciously fighting for plaintiffs and their civil rights for her entire legal career. Iris focuses on vindicating the rights of employees and students who have been victims of discrimination, harassment, and oppression in the workplace or at schools, with expertise in constitutional law, federal and state employment and education antidiscrimination and civil rights statutes, and employment wage, hour, and leave laws.
Iris started advocating for employee rights long before entering law. After college, she worked for a number of years as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union, travelling across the country supporting workers agitating for better work conditions. After law school, Iris worked at the Denver Field Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ultimately serving as the Senior Trial Attorney and an Acting Supervisory Attorney. At the EEOC, Iris tried multiple lengthy and complex trials including serving as lead attorney on EEOC v. JBS USA, LLC, a month-long trial involving hundreds of Somali, Muslim refugees who were denied religious accommodation and harassed. The case resulted in a $5.5 million settlement. Iris also litigated many large class sexual harassment lawsuits while at the EEOC including EEOC and Baltazar et al. v. Vail Run Community Resort Association, a case involving the sexual assault and extortion of eight undocumented housekeeper in the Vail Valley which was awarded the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association Case of the Year Award in 2016.
Iris cares passionately about her clients and supports them at the forefront of today’s legal battles. At the EEOC Iris served as lead attorney on EEOC v. Deluxe Financial, Corp., a case which resulted in a consent decree recognizing the right of a transgender employee to be free from harassment and to use a restroom commensurate with her gender identity. It was one of the first three cases filed by the Commission seeking to have courts recognize gender identity as falling within the meaning of “sex” under Title VII. In 2024, Iris was named the Colorado LGBTQ Bar Association’s Attorney of the Year for her advocacy on behalf of the community. Currently, Iris is pioneering litigation in states across the nation under the First Amendment and state and federal anti-discrimination laws to hold library systems accountable for unlawful book bans and other forms of censorship targeting LGBTQ+ and racial minority communities and content in books, including advocating for librarians and other public employees who oppose such censorship and suffer adverse consequences as a result of doing so. Her Colorado case, Parks v. High Plains Library District et al., which won the Colorado Plaintiff Employment Lawyers Association’s case of the year award in 2024, resulted in a first state agency finding and action by a state Attorney General’s Office on behalf of a librarian for opposing censorship. The case settled for significant monetary damages, but more importantly required the offending library district to revise its programming policies, report to the state periodically, adhere to non-discrimination mandates, and reduce the chances of partisanship and politics impacting library programming and materials.
Iris has published widely on various legal topics, particularly in electronic discovery in employment discrimination cases. She co-authored the chapter on a plaintiff’s perspective on e-discovery in the American Bar Association (ABA) & Bloomberg BNA treatise WORKPLACE DATA: LAW AND LITIGATION. Before entering the law, Iris was a Fulbright Scholar in Toronto, Canada, and a union organizer for the Service Employees International Union. She is active in the community and is involved with several advocacy organizations that battle wage theft, agitate for equality, and push for legislative change. She has testified, provided input, or helped draft important pieces of legislation in the state, including the Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights Act (POWR Act) (SB23-172), the Updates to Employment Discrimination Laws Act (HB22-1367), Standards for Decisions Regarding Library Resources Act (SB24-216), Preventing Harassment and Discrimination in Schools Act (SB23-296), and Regulating Law Enforcement Use of Prone Restraint Act (HB24-1372), amongst others. Iris has taught employment law as an adjunct professor of law at Colorado Law, University of Colorado Boulder and Sturm College of Law at Denver University.
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