Profiles
J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A., Brown University magna cum laude
Special interests: family law, sexual orientation, gender identity and the law, employment discrimination
Throughout her career, Professor Joslin has worked extensively on issues of gender equity, the civil rights of gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and other issues related to family, gender, and sexual orientation.
Prior to joining the faculty at UC Davis, Professor Joslin served as an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), where she litigated cases on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families. Among other cases, along with a team of other lawyers, Professor Joslin represented at the trial court and Court of Appeal levels a group of same-sex couples seeking the right to marry in the In re Marriage Cases. While at NCLR, Professor Joslin also litigated many cases that addressed the parentage of children born to same-sex couples. For example, she represented Emily B. in Elisa B. v. Superior Court, a case in which the California Supreme Court became the first high court in the country to hold that a woman was the legal parent of children born to her same-sex partner through assisted reproduction without the need for an adoption.
Her scholarship has continued this focus on family law and relationship recognition issues. "I am interested in family law issues both because I find them intellectually fascinating and because they have such a profound impact on almost every aspect of our lives. Not only does family law tell us which people are spouses and which people are parents, family law rules also affect the benefits we receive at work and how we pay our taxes," she explains.
Professor Joslin received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she was an executive editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She was a law clerk for the Honorable Maxine M. Chesney in the Northern District of California and for the Honorable Victoria Lederberg in the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Davis, she taught as an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law and at Santa Clara University School of Law. Currently, Professor Joslin serves as a Commissioner on the American Bar Association's (ABA) Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and has leadership positions with a number of other ABA entities.
