LGBT Resource Network
LGBT Initiatives
Dewey & LeBoeuf’s community of lawyers include LGBT lawyers at all levels of seniority, from partners and counsel to associates and summer associates. Our administrative staff reflects that breadth of diversity, and similarly includes LGBT individuals at all levels of seniority. We strive to create a welcoming environment, and to provide professional resources and networking opportunities, for our LGBT lawyers and staff worldwide.
Our Approach
Our efforts begin the moment a lawyer or staff member joins our firm. To help foster an inclusive, diverse environment, the firm tracks the identity groups with which our lawyers and staff identify. As part of their on-boarding process, lawyers and staff are given the opportunity to self-identify as members of the LGBT community, and other diverse communities. If he or she chooses to identify as part of the community, they are welcomed by an LGBT senior partner at the firm, invited to participate in the firm’s LGBT Resource Network, as well as outside professional networks, and is introduced to other members of the Resource Network.
Once a part of our firm, lawyers and staff gain the immediate benefit of institutionalized policies designed to recognize and support LGBT families. The firm’s benefit packages include coverage of spouses as well as qualified domestic partners. Unmarried dependent children, stepchildren or qualified domestic partners’ children are all eligible dependents for medical, dental, vision and life coverage.
Lawyers
As a lawyer starts the process of integrating into the firm, our firm-wide LGBT Resource Network, serves as an important support structure and resource for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lawyers. The LGBT Resource Network has been an integral part of the firm’s diversity efforts for many years, and it was expanded in 2010 to include a Resource Network Chapter for LGBT Staff. The LGBT Resource Network’s goals and objectives are: (1) to promote awareness and diversity within the firm by conducting and co-sponsoring various firm-wide events; (2) to foster informal mentor/peer relationships and provide guidance to its members; (3) to solicit and offer pro-bono assistance to LGBT clients and causes; (4) to identify and foster business development opportunities within the LGBT community; (5) to assist in recruiting the LGBT legal talent, (6) to serve as a resource for the firm’s administrative management and for LGBT staff; (7) and to serve as a resource for the firm’s marketing and recruiting efforts.
The LGBT Resource Network provides a forum for LGBT lawyers to meet and express concerns or ideas that they may have. Through formal efforts of the firm’s Diversity Committee and the LGBT Resource Network, LGBT concerns are an integral part of the firm’s culture. One of the goals of the LGBT Resource Network is to help promote and retain LGBT lawyers at the firm.
Staff
In 2010, the firm began collecting LGBT status information of administrative staff as part of its on-boarding process. Gathering this information was integral to launching the LGBT Staff Resource Network chapter. Since its formation, the staff chapter has worked with the lawyer chapter in the development and planning of the annual Pride Event. The LGBT Staff Resource Network is actively working to promote the network within the firm to create a greater sense of community and to stimulate motivation, involvement and participation of the members of the Resource Network, including through providing opportunities for members to attend art exhibitions, plays and discussions of topics important to the LGBT community. One member of the LGBT Staff Resource Network stated that “The existence of the resource network is an opportunity to feel equal and accepted in the workplace, thereby dissolving any barriers that may exist.”
Pro-Bono, Education and Awareness
The firm’s efforts on behalf of its LGBT population do not end with policies and practices, but rather becomes a part of the overall firm culture. Through programs designed to educate and raise awareness, the entire firm gains the benefit of the experiences of the LGBT community. These programs are both internal and external, and seek to educate our wider firm community while assisting those outside the firm who continue to fight for LGBT equality.
Our external efforts are centered on our pro bono efforts in matters of great importance to the LGBT community. As one example, on August 9, 2011, members of the LGBT Resource Network filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Adar v. Smith, in which a writ of certiorari has been filed. Partner Jonathan Damon and Associate Douglas Mateyaschuk – each a member of the LGBT Resource Network — worked in a pro bono capacity alongside the National Center for Lesbian Rights in putting together the filing on behalf of twenty-seven (27) leading family law, constitutional law and conflict of laws professors and legal experts. Other network members also provided valuable assistance with the brief. The amicus brief requests that the U.S. Supreme Court review an en banc decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which allows the State of Louisiana to discriminate against children born in that state and adopted by unmarried parents in other states by refusing to issue them with accurate birth certificates. The plaintiffs in the case are a same sex couple from New York who are seeking to memorialize their parentage of an adopted child born in Louisiana.
Our participation in Adar v. Smith met our twin goals of internal and external development of the LGBT community. Not only did the brief raise important questions about how LGBT families are treated and recognized, but the team of Resource Network members gained an opportunity to work with each other in a way they may not on a day-to-day basis.
While helping the larger LGBT community is an important goal, we do not lose sight of our obligation to educate and support our internal community as well. The New York office celebrated LGBT Pride Month in 2011 by collaborating with one of the firm’s pro bono partner organizations, Immigration Equality, to host a legally married same-sex bi-national couple threatened with separation as a result of federal immigration laws which do not recognize same-sex relationships. The couple spoke passionately about the challenges of finding a legal party for staying together after decades of love and commitment, and how worried they are about not being able to help take care of each other as they grow older. Two lawyers from Immigration Equality also spoke about their efforts to keep bi-national couples together, including by lobbying Congress to recognize the status of bi-national couples, some of whom were legally married by states and countries that have already started to recognize marriage equality. This event was a good example of how the firm works in multiple ways with non-profits. At any one time, lawyers at our firm represent pro bono LGBT and HIV positive asylum cases that were referred to us from Immigration Equality. With this event, Immigration Equality’s participation helped educate our firm about certain legal issues that many take for granted and put a face on the human costs of legalized discrimination.