NLGLA and the American Bar Association

In 1992, the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association (NLGLA) gained a seat in the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association. Obtaining the seat was a hard fought battle (involving one prior defeat) that was won by amending the ABA Constitution to recognize the NLGLA as an affiliated organization of the ABA.

NLGLA works directly with the ABA Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities (IRR) and its Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates

Jeffrey G. Gibson is a civil litigator in San Francisco and a partner with the law firm of Goldstein, Gellman, Melbostad, Gibson and Harris. A graduate of the University of Texas and Pepperdine Law School, he has served on the national board of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and was an originating board member of the Bay Area AIDS Legal Referral Panel. He organized programs on gay/lesbian children and youth for the Second World Congress on Children in San Francisco. From 1993-2000, he chaired the ABA’s IR&R committee on the rights of lesbians and gay men, and has served since 2000 on the Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children.

Law Student Division Delegate

Ryan Dunn is a third-year student in a joint law and urban planning program at UCLA.  Ryan graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor's degree in business administration and worked for a real estate development company in Minneapolis before beginning his graduate work.  At UCLA, Ryan has been extensively involved in LGBT issues and was awarded the UCLA Outstanding Graduate Student Leadership Award.  He has also served as co-chair of OUTlaw at UCLA, and worked with a UCLA School of Law professor on a book project examining the legal status of openly LGBT students and educators in public K-12 schools.

Delegate to the Commission on Women in the Profession

Leslie Farber is an attorney at law practicing in Montclair, New Jersey, concentrating primarily in the areas of personal injury, workers compensation, employment law, real estate, contracts, LGBT rights (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender), small estate planning, and general litigation. Ms. Farber received her law degree in 1991 from Pace University School of Law where she was an editor of the Pace Law Review. Currently, Leslie is Chairperson of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association, a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Employment Lawyers - New Jersey (NELA-NJ),  and the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association’s (NLGLA), where she also serves as NLGLA’s liaison to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. Outside of the practice of law, Leslie is member of the board of directors of Garden State Equality (a non-partisan LGBTI political action organization).

Delegate to the Assembly of the Young Lawyers Division

Jason S. Gibson is an associate with Holland & Knight LLP in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He practices in the area of transactional real estate law - focusing on retail, office, and industrial leasing. Jason has been a member of NLGLA since 2006. He graduated from the University of Miami School of Law after attending Harvard College for undergraduate studies in Economics.

Liaison to the ABA/IRR SOGI Committee

Kara Suffredini is the Director of Public Policy at Family Equality Council, a national LGBT rights organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. She served on NLGLA’s board of directors for ten years, serving as chair in 2004-2005. She currently is chair of NLGLA’s Strategic Planning Committee and NLGLA’s liaison to the ABA/IRR’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee, of which she is a vice chair. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Boston College Law School and a past Harvard Law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow. She is admitted to practice in her home state of California, as well as Connecticut and the District of Columbia.

Representative to the Council of the Young Lawyers Division

Mario Sullivan is an associate at the Law Offices of Peter Anthony Johnson, P.C. He counsels clients on a wide range of issues relating to real estate, evictions, business formation, and estate planning. Mr. Sullivan is a member of the Chicago Bar Association (CBA), the Illinois State Bar Association, and the American Bar Association (ABA). In addition, he is a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association (NLGLA), the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago (LAGBAC), and the American Constitution Society (ACS). Mr. Sullivan serves as NLGLA's National Representative to the ABA Young Lawyers Division (YLD), Committee Member for the ABA YLD Diversity Team, Board Member and Chair of the Program Committee for LAGBAC, Chair of the CBA Committee on the Legal Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men; and Board Member and Programming Committee Member of the ACS Chicago Lawyer Chapter. Mr. Sullivan graduated from the Illinois State University in 2000 and obtained his J.D. from The John Marshall Law School in 2005.

Delegate to the AIDS Coordinating Committee

Richard Wilson is principal in The Law Offices of Richard A Wilson PC, in Chicago, where he concentrates exclusively on litigation and appellate practice relating to domestic relations law and legal issues, with particular emphasis on same-sex issues, including domestic partnerships, parentage, custody and visitation and related concerns and rights of persons in same-sex relationships. Mr Wilson is currently Chair of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2006-2007). He is also immediate past chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Committee on the Legal Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men (2005-2006 and 2004-2005), a member of the American Bar Association’s AIDS Coordinating Committee, and the Board of Directors of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago. He also serves on a roundtable of lawyers who practice same-sex Domestic Relations law, founded in 2003 by the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Delegate to the Assembly of the Young Lawyers Division

Vacant

Delegate to the Section of Family Law

Vacant

ABA INITIATIVES

2007 Mid-Year Support of LGBT Issues for Goal IX

At the 2007 Mid-Year meeting in Miami, the ABA House of Delegates voted in favor of a committee-supported recommendation to amend the ABA's Goal IX to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The eleven goals of the ABA reflect the specific ideals that the ABA aspires to serve in all its work. When originally adopted in 1991, Goal IX was "to promote full and equal participation in the legal profession by minorities and women." In 1999, Goal IX was amended to include "persons with disabilities." In furtherance of Goal IX, the Association has taken a host of actions that have greatly increased opportunities for minorities, women, and persons with disabilities to achieve their full potential as members of the bar. The recommendation that was adopted amends Goal IX to assure full and equal participation in the profession without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. The recommendation was passed without any opposition.

Inclusion of Sexual Orientation in Non-Discrimination Legislation

Beginning in 1983, the Committee on the Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men within IRR introduced a resolution urging the enactment of legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The measure narrowly failed, was reintroduced in 1985, and failed again. Finally, in February 1989, with the help of some of the founders of NLGLA, the ABA House of Delegates overwhelmingly adopted the following policy:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association urges the Federal government, the states and the local governments to enact legislation, subject to such exceptions as may be appropriate, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

Historical Support for LGBT Diversity in the Profession

The ABA has also adopted a series of other policies related to sexual orientation, gender expression and the law, including:

a policy urging the repeal of all laws that criminalize private non-commercial sexual conduct between consenting adults (1973);

a policy condemning hate crimes, including those based on sexual orientation, and urging vigorous prosecution of the perpetrators of such crimes (1987);

establishment of an AIDS Coordinating Committee to bring together representatives from various sections of the ABA to work on legal issues arising out of the AIDS epidemic (1988);

a policy on the criminal justice system and AIDS and a comprehensive 63-part policy on AIDS and the law (1989);

Canon 3B(5) of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which requires that: “A judge shall not, in the performance of judicial duties, by words or conduct manifest bias or prejudice, including but not limited to bias or prejudice based upon . . . sexual orientation . . .” (1990);

a resolution urging affirmative steps to increase the diversity of the ABA House of Delegates with respect to various attributes including sexual orientation (1990);

a resolution supporting the enactment of federal legislation requiring a study of bias in the federal judicial system, including bias based on sexual orientation (1991);

a resolution opposing efforts by government to withhold funds from, or otherwise penalize, educational institutions for denying access to campus placement facilities to government employers who discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (1992);

a resolution supporting the enactment of legislation providing that child custody and visitation shall not be denied or restricted on the basis of sexual orientation (1995);

a resolution supporting the enactment of legislation providing that sexual orientation shall not be a bar to adoption when the adoption is determined to be in the best interest of the child (1999);

a resolution to maximize diversity of incoming law students (the “Pipeline Diversity” resolution (2006); 

and

a resolution urging federal, state and local governments to enact legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression in employment, housing and public accommodations (2006).

Because of these policies; the ABA was able to file an amicus brief in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, 530 U.S. 640 (2000), before the U.S. Supreme Court (the ABA only files amici briefs in a court of final determination) and more recently in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).

Further, there have been educational programs at the ABA meetings presented by NLGLA on transgender law, legal protections against bullying LGBT youth, and many others.

For more information on NLGLA role in the ABA, please contact:

Jeffrey G. Gibson, Esq.
NLGLA'S Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates