Pride Law Fund promotes the legal rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community, and people living with HIV and AIDS, by funding legal services and projects and by sponsoring education and outreach.

 

Pride Law Fund has assisted innovative academic programs, supported the development and distribution of legal and educational materials, and financed independent and documentary film projects to educate the public. Pride Law Fund is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, non-profit, charitable organization, founded in 1979.

History of Pride Law Fund

“In 1979, Pride Law Fund (formerly the National Educational Foundation for Individual Rights) was founded by members of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Gay Rights Advocates, the Lesbian Rights Project, the Texas Human Rights Foundation, and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders to raise money to support gay civil rights litigation and national education projects. Pride Law Fund is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, non-profit, charitable organization.”

Our current efforts are largely focused on the Summer and Steel Fellowship Programs. Since 1984, Pride Law Fund has funded over 100 summer fellowships to law students working as interns on LGBT and HIV/AIDS-related legal projects. In 2001, we launched the Tom Steel Fellowship, one of the first year-long fellowships on LGBT issues in the nation, to fund a recent law school graduate for an innovative, public interest law project. The Steel Fellowship helps the next generation of legal advocates for the LGBTQ community to develop the critical skills necessary to secure civil rights into the future.

Pride Law Fund fellowships have supported work at organizations including the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, American Civil Liberties Union, East Bay Community Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Service members Legal Defense Network, Urban Justice Center, Whitman-Walker Clinic Legal Services and many others, in locations ranging from San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York to Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix and Portland, Maine.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair

  • Matt Olhausen, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Vice Chair

  • Shaina Hyder, Cloudflare, Inc

TREASURER

  • Philip Shecter, McDermott Will & Emery

SECRETARY

  • Jim Bertoldi

BOARD MEMBERS

  • Eric Armstrong, Facebook

  • Jessica Bogo, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

  • Cian Cardenas, Baker McKenzie

  • Taylor Cashwell, DLA Piper

  • Mandy Chan, DLA Piper

  • Kyle Kitson, Homeless Action Center

  • Flora Pereira, Independent Television Service, Inc.

  • Martin Quinones, Sher Edling, LLP

  • Dina Roumiantseva, Cooley, LLP

  • Steven Tang, City & County of San Francisco

  • Ming Wong, National Center for Lesbian Rights

OUR FELLOWSHIPS

Since 1984, PLF has funded over 100 law student summer clerkships at LGBT civil rights organizations across the country.