ASSOCIATION FOCUS
THE NATIONAL LGBT BAR
ASSOCIATION 2013 LAVENDER LAW CONFERENCE
42
SET AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE PASSIONATE 1987 LESBIAN & GAY MARCH ON WASHINGTON, a small band of gay and lesbian family law practitioners formally introduced the idea of creating the National LGBT Bar Association. T e following year, the association’s annual Lavender Law Conference got its start in San Francisco as a modest but enthusiastically attended weekend-long event. And now, 25 years later, the conference is the largest annual assembly of LGBT legal professionals in the coun- try, serving a wide ra nge of demographics including law students, judges, and prac- titioners ranging from Am Law 200 attorneys to family lawyers who hang up their own shingle and encom- passing the full diversity of legal issues facing the LGBT community. T e once small gathering has grown to nearly 2,000 participants and is sponsored by corporations like Bank of America, Shell, BMW of North America, MetLife, and Hewlett Packard. In addition to corporations, Lavender Law is supported by law fi rms like Seyfarth Shaw, Reed Smith, and Fried Frank, and legal support services such as Navigant and Major, Lindsey and Africa. T e Lavender Law Conference off ers an unparalleled
BY PATRICK FOLLIARD
Now the LGBT community is recognized by large law fi rms who demonstrate their commitment to diversity by underwrit- ing both the LGBT bar and Lavender Law’s expenses.” For attorneys like Singer, attending Lavender Law confer-
ences has been a veritable lifeline over the years. “I practice in rural New Jersey. I can see hayfi elds from my window. I was also the fi rst openly gay attorney to practice in the state,” he says. “Over the years when I needed to confer with attorneys who were working on LGBT rights-related cases there was really no one to reach out to, so when Lavender Law came along, it was a wondrous thing. On that same token, that period was a time of despair and gloom in our community. It was the height of the AIDS crisis. We were watching our friends and colleagues die around us. Lavender Law and the contacts I made there, made things a lot better.” Like the fi rst conference, the 2013 Lavender Law
“ THE LAWYERS WHO PRESENT AT AND ATTEND LAVENDER LAW ARE ON THE FRONT LINES.” —D’ARCY KEMNITZ
Conference is being held in San Francisco (August 22-24). Its two days of workshops and forums feature a fi rst-rate cast of speakers including prominent LGBT law practitioners Nan D. Hunter, associate dean for Graduate Programs and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center; Pat Cain, professor of law at Santa Clara University and the Aliber Family Chair in Law,
opportunity for its LGBT participants and their allies to con- nect and learn from each other’s career and life experiences— some very familiar and others completely new and diff erent. “T e changes over the years have been phenomenal. It
blows my mind,” says Bill Singer, the general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based National LGBT Bar Association and veteran Lavender Law attendee. “For the fi rst 15 years, the Lavender Law conference was a volunteer-run operation run on a shoestring budget. T e board chair was licking envelopes.
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JULY/AUGUST 2013
Emerita, at the University of Iowa; Jenny Pizer, Law and Policy Project director for Lambda Legal; Jon Davidson, legal director at Lambda Legal; Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Paul Smith, a partner at Jenner & Block; Nancy Polikoff , a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, who is serving as the McDonald/Wright Chair in Law at UCLA and Faculty Chair of the Williams Institute; and Bill Singer, a partner and founder of Singer & Fedun LLC. D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the National LGBT
Bar Association and its very fi rst employee since 2004, expects 1,800 participants to attend the conference, which will promote advocacy and education on topics that are meaningful to the LGBT community, from marriage and adoption law to openly transgender service in the military and providing benefi ts for the family of now openly serving LGB members of the military. But unlike in years past, the conference will not
MCCA.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52