In this communication we present the work by Pampolini and Triantafyllidis [1], in which an electro-mechanical theory for nematic continua is proposed. The theory is based on a variational approach and the equilibrium relations plus the Maxwell's equations are obtained as the Euler-Lagrange equations of a specific potential energy. The variational formulation is applied to the study of a 2D boundary value problem, termed in the literature as Freedericksz transition, where a nematic liquid crystal layer is confined between two plates and an electric field is applied perpendicular to the plates. This boundary value problem is treated as a bifurcation problem and an asymptotic analysis of the bifurcated equilibrium path is carried out.