Derek J. Demeri, Esq

Derek J. Demeri (he/him or they/them) is an attorney with Weissman & Mintz LLC and focuses on representing labor unions and progressive movements throughout New Jersey. They have an extensive background in anti-discrimination work and community organizing, particularly for the LGBTQ+ and sex worker communities. Prior to entering the legal profession, Derek co-founded the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance—New Jersey’s first sex worker rights organization—and was a boycott organizer with UNITE HERE! supporting workers during the 2016 Trump Taj Mahal Casino strike in Atlantic City. He received his B.A. in political science from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in 2015. Derek also teaches 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. As a high school student, Derek was a co-founder of his town’s Gay-Straight Alliance and served as a Sex, Etc. teen staff writer from 2010 to 2011.