Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, Attorneys at Law

Jody Lynn Yetzer

Jody Yetzer became an associate of the firm in 2001.  Her area of practice is civil litigation with a focus on employment, civil rights and entertainment litigation.  Jody has particular expertise representing plaintiffs in class action cases, see "Claims of Bias Proceed Against Parks Department," NYLJ, September 22, 2006 referring to Wright v. Stern, 2003 WL 21543539 (S.D.N.Y. 2003), and 2006 WL 2669082 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) (class action on behalf of African-American and Hispanic employees of the New York City Parks Department raising claims of employment discrimination and retaliation).  She also has been actively involved in protecting the liberty of persons subject to the unwritten “policy” of the New York State Board of Parole to deny release to felony offenders, see Victory v. Pataki, 02CV0031 (W.D.N.Y.).  Jody practices in both federal and state courts and appears before administrative tribunals.

Prior to coming to the firm, Jody worked as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project and for the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union.  Prior to that, she clerked for the Honorable Alvin W. Thompson of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.  At the ACLU, Jody successfully litigated challenges to prohibitions on reproductive health care funding for low-income women.  See, e.g., Planned Parenthood v. Perdue, 28 P.3d 904 (Alaska 2001).  Prior class action experience includes a challenge to housing practices under federal fair housing laws in the City of New Haven, which resulted in a comprehensive consent decree designed to improve the availability of housing for the City’s low-income residents, and a challenge to Connecticut’s sex offender registration requirement, which ultimately was resolved by the United States Supreme Court, see Connecticut Dep’t of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003).