For nearly 30 years, we have represented lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in corporate, litigation and public policy matters, helping ensure their equal rights and freedoms. We also regularly represent LGBT individuals seeking asylum from countries where their safety is threatened and their sexual orientation is criminalized.
Select Projects and Partnerships
ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union. In partnership with the ACLU, we successfully challenged Nebraska’s administrative policies that categorically prohibited gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster and adoptive parents and, in April 2017, the decision we obtained was affirmed by the Nebraska Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion.
We also represented gay and lesbian couples who, because they were unable to marry, were barred from serving as adoptive or foster parents in Arkansas. In 2011, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the act implementing the policy as an unconstitutional violation of fundamental privacy rights under the Arkansas Constitution.
We have also partnered with the ACLU in the years between these two state Supreme Court victories on several other successful constitutional challenges to state and federal law.
Immigration Equality, representing LGBT asylum seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund’s The Name Change Project, assisting low-income members of the transgender community to secure a new legal name that conforms to their gender identity. As part of the project, our lawyers mentor Columbia Law School students on these cases. To date, we’ve obtained name changes for more than 200 clients.