Celebrating June 26th: A Discussion of LGBT Supreme Court Victories

Celebrating June 26th: A Discussion of LGBT Supreme Court Victories

On Monday, June 26th, at 12:00pm PST/3:00pm EST, the National LGBT Bar Association will host a call-in celebrating the anniversary of three landmark Supreme Court rulings for the LGBT community: Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).

These monumental decisions helped shape the future of the LGBT movement. Join us as our team of expert panelists, including Nan Hunter, Atiba Ellis, and Adam Unikowsky, discuss the legacies of these cases, the legal precedent they established, and what we can learn from them.

Call-in Information
Time: June 26th, 12:00pm PST/3:00pm EST
Dial-in Number: (712) 432-6333
Participant Code: 187141#

Meet our Speakers:

Adam Unikowsky, Partner, Jenner & Block (Moderator)
Adam Unikowsky litigates cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, appellate courts, trial courts, and administrative agencies. At the U.S. Supreme Court, Adam won five cases as lead counsel over the Court’s 2015-16 and 2016-17 terms. In the 2016-17 term, he conducted oral arguments on behalf of petitioners in three cases, leading to unanimous victories in all three: Kokesh v. SEC, which addressed the SEC’s power to obtain disgorgement; Honeycutt v. United States, which addressed the government’s power to obtain criminal asset forfeiture; and Howell v. Howell, a dispute over veterans’ benefits. Adam was also lead counsel in two major cases in 2016, including Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, a case addressing Puerto Rico’s political status, and V.L. v. E.L., in which he obtained an emergency stay, followed by a unanimous reversal on the merits of a lower-court decision refusing to grant full faith and credit to an out-of-state judgment. Adam began working at Jenner & Block in 2008, and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during the 2010-2011 term.

Nan Hunter, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Hunter’s primary scholarship has spanned three areas: state regulation of sexuality and gender, health law, and federal courts and procedure. Her work has been published in numerous law journals, and several of her articles have been selected for reprinting in anthologies. She is co-author of a casebook on sexuality, gender, and the law soon to be in its fourth edition. Her most recent scholarship focuses on law and social movements. From 2011 to 2016, Professor Hunter served as Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at Georgetown Law. In addition to Georgetown, she has taught as a full-time or visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School, Harvard Law School, the University of Miami Law School, and UCLA Law School. Prior to starting her career in teaching law, Professor Hunter was a member of the national legal staff of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, specializing in constitutional and civil rights law. She was the founding Director of the LGBT Rights Project of the ACLU, after having worked as a staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. She also served as Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration. In 1997, President Clinton appointed her to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. Professor Hunter is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. In 2000, she was honored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research as a “Civil Rights Pioneer.”

Atiba Ellis, Professor of Law, West Virginia’s College of Law
Professor Ellis joined West Virginia University’s College of Law faculty in 2009. His research focuses on voting rights law with specific attention to how varying conceptions of the right to vote exclude voters on the margins. He has written about the economic entry barriers posed by voter ID laws, the theoretical effects of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and related topics. Professor Ellis’s current research focuses on voting rights theory and how ideology affects the scope of the right to vote. He has also written on critical legal theory and legal history. Professor Ellis is a frequent speaker at academic conferences, university and law school lectures, and community events about voting rights law, how race and gender affect the law of politics, diversity issues, and other matters related to the law of politics.