David Brown
Santa Clara University School of Law
HIV/AIDS Living Will Outreach Project
My summer clerkship at AIDS Legal Services (ALS) was a rewarding experience. The attorneys I met were direct, understanding, and compassionate. HIV/AIDS affects so many people around the globe, including hundreds of people in the Bay Area. Many of our clients face debt as they try to cover exorbitant medical expenses. Debt collectors harass them and we help to end the harassment. A number of our clients cannot work, so we help them get disability payments. The discrimination people with HIV/AIDS face on a daily basis from employers, coworkers and landlords is startling. A stigma still accompanies HIV/AIDS that does not extend to other life-threatening conditions.
I want to thank the Pride Law Fund for giving me the opportunity to work with AIDS Legal Services this past summer. The Richter Fellowship enabled me to help clients create living wills and advanced health care directives.
Becca Levin
American University School of Law
Policing the Transgender Community
In Pennsylvania, the safety of transgender individuals is constantly at risk. With the exception of the existence of a handful of local ordinances in Pennsylvania (that specifically protect against discrimination based on gender identity) transgender Pennsylvanians are generally unprotected by anti-discrimination laws. The transgender community is also more likely to be victimized by hate crimes. Discrimination against transgender people by the law enforcement community compounds the problem.
My project investigated police relations with the LGBT community in Philadelphia and specifically focused on the experience of transgender people. I analyzed crime statistics and found that arrests under “quality of life” crimes are disproportionately high in areas with a high concentration of LGBT establishments. I then designed and implemented a survey and collected anecdotal evidence about LGBT individuals’ experience with the police. The findings will be used to work with the Police Advisory Commission and the Philadelphia Police Department to improve relations between the LGBT community and the police.
Erin Riechenbach
UC Berkeley School of Law, Boalt Hall
Transgender Employees Project
SF Human Rights Commission
I am working on a section of a five-year report that will address how to remove discrimination in the administration of health benefits in one’s own place of work. I have also been making phone calls to HMOs trying to access relevant information. Finally, I have been working on a number of direct services cases, and revived some older cases that have been waiting for attention.
Harper Jean Tobin
Case Western University School of Law
Building a Transgender Rights Practice
I went to law school to do civil rights work, so a summer at Lambda Legal was my dream job. Given my strong interest in transgender rights work, it was a very special opportunity to work in Lambda’s Southern Regional Office with their national Transgender Civil Rights Project attorney. Every day I was working on something different and interesting: First Amendment, employment discrimination, adoption, probation, and civil procedure. Not only did I do more legal research and writing than ever before, I got to see how impact litigation works from the inside: the legal strategy, the media strategy, choosing cases or plaintiffs etc. It was an invaluable and professional experience, and one that wouldn’t have been possible without financial support.
Meredith Wallis
UC Davis School of Law, King Hall
Transgender Immigrants’ Rights Project
The U.S. may grant asylum to people who have a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The persecution must come from the government or a person or group that the government is unable or unwilling to control. Some transgender applicants have been granted asylum based on their membership in the particular social group “transgender” and/or as imputed homosexuals. (Homosexuality has a longer case history as a particular social group.) Deciding whether or not to apply for asylum can be tough, especially if you are undocumented. If you win, you can stay in the US and be eligible for public benefits. If you lose, you can be deported, and your asylum application can be used in proceedings against you.
The Pride Law Fund Fellowship helped me to assist with two clients’ asylum applications. I helped the supervising attorney explain their chances for obtaining asylum and various alternatives. For asylum claims, applicants must fill out the application in English and submit a declaration to supplement the form. After meeting with my clients, I drafted their declarations and translated them into Spanish so they could review them before signing the English version. I also prepared a legal memo of points and authorities in support of both clients as well as country condition information.
