The Dan Bradley Award is the LGBT Bar’s highest honor. It recognizes the efforts of a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender legal community whose work, like Attorney Dan Bradley, has led the way in our struggle for equality under the law. Dan Bradley was the first chair of the American Bar Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibility’s Committee on the Rights of Gay People, now known as the Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Bradley saw the law as a powerful instrument of social justice, and he believed that lawyers had an obligation to place their skills as advocates at the service of the least powerful among us.
The National LGBT Bar is proud to bestow David Lat with the 2020 Dan Bradley Award. David Lat is a lawyer, author, legal commentator, and founding editor of Above the Law, an award-winning website about the legal profession that reaches more than 1.5 million unique visitors a month. David’s writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other publications. Prior to Above the Law, he launched Underneath Their Robes, a blog about federal judges. David’s first book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel, was published in 2014.
In 2019, David left full-time journalism to enter legal recruiting. Today he works as managing director in the New York office of Lateral Link, a leading legal search firm with a strong commitment to advancing diversity in the legal profession.
Before entering the media and recruiting worlds, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. David graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. David lives in Manhattan with his husband, fellow lawyer Zachary Baron Shemtob, and their two-year-old son.
Through his work at Above the Law and his other writing, David has played a leading role in driving the legal profession to confront and address LGBTQ+ issues. Over the years, he has written about such subjects as the fight for marriage equality, Title VII and its protection of LGBT employees, and how LGBT individuals are building families through gestational surrogacy. Above the Law has also helped shape the conversation within the entire legal community about diversity and inclusion, including the struggle for LGBTQ+ equality, and has brought much-needed transparency to the world of large law firms, becoming a trusted source of information for lawyers and law students to rely upon.
David Lat will be honored during the virtual Awards Program on August 12, 2020 at the 2020 Lavender Law® Conference and Career Fair.
Winners:
2020 | Lavender Law – Virtual
David Lat, Legal Recruiter – Managing Director, Lateral Link
2019 | Lavender Law - Philadelphia
Chai Feldblum, Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
2018 | Lavender Law - New York City
Justice Rosalyn H. Richter, Associate Justice, New York State Appellate Division First Department
2017 | Lavender Law 2017 - San Francisco, CA
Douglas Hallward-Dreimeir and the Pro Bono team at Ropes & Gray LLP
2016 | Lavender Law 2016 - Washington, D.C.
Kevin Cathcart, former Executive Director of Lambda Legal
2015 | Lavender Law 2015 - Chicago, IL
Mary Bonauto, Director, Civil Rights Project, GLAD
2014 | Lavender Law 2014 – New York, NY
Evan Wolfson, Founder and President, Freedom to Marry
Honorary Dan Bradley award presented posthumously to David Rosenblum, Legal Director, Mazzoni Center
2013 | Lavender Law 2013 – San Francisco, CA
James Esseks, Director of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project, ACLU
2012 | Lavender Law 2012 – Washington, DC
Jennifer Levi, Director of Transgender Rights Project, GLAD
2011 | Lavender Law 2011 – Hollywood, CA
Nancy Polikoff, Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
2010 | Lavender Law 2010 — Miami Beach, FL
Jon Davidson, Legal Director, Lambda Legal
2009 | Lavender Law 2009 — Brooklyn, NY
Dr. Frank Kameny, one of the nation’s first and foremost gay activists
2008 | Lavender Law 2008 — San Francisco, CA
Shannon Minter, Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Therese Stewart, Chief Deputy City Attorney, City of San Francisco
2007 | Lavender Law 2007 — San Francisco, CA
Patricia M. Logue, Associate Judge, Circuit Court of Cook County
2006 | Lavender Law 2006 — Washington, DC
Urvashi Vaid, Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation
2005 | Lavender Law 2005 — San Diego, CA
Arthur S. Leonard, Professor of Law at New York Law School and author of Law Notes
2004 | Lavender Law 2004 — Minneapolis, MN
Ruth E. Harlow, former Legal Director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund; Lead Counsel in the landmark case, Lawrence v. Texas
2003 | Lavender Law 2003 — New York, NY
Matthew Coles, Director, ACLU National Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
Leslie Cooper, Staff Attorney, ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
2002 | Lavender Law 2002 — Philadelphia, PA
Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, CA
2001 | Lavender Law 2001 — Dallas, TX
Phyllis Randolph Frye, Transgender Activist and Civil Rights Leader, Houston, TX
2000 | Lavender Law 2000 — Washington, D.C.
Mark D. Agrast, Legislative Director & Counsel to Rep. William H. Delahunt, Former NLGLA Co-Chair
1999 | Lavender Law 1999 — Seattle, WA
Hon. Stephen M. Lachs, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
1998 | Lavender Law 1998 — Boston, MA
John Ward, Founder & Former Executive Director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders
1997 | Lavender Law 1997 – West Hollywood, CA
Abby Rubenfeld, Rubenfeld & Associates, Nashville, Tennessee; Former Legal Director of Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund
1996 | Lavender Law V - New Orleans, LA
Suzanne Goldberg, Attorney for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund
Tom Stoddard, Former Executive Director of Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund
Jeanne Winer, Trial Counsel for Plaintiffs in Evans v. Romer
1994 | Lavender Law IV-Portland, OR
William E. Adams, Jr., Nova University School of Law, Fort Lauderdale, FL
1992 | Lavender Law III – Chicago, IL
Sue Wilson, Attorney for Sharon Kowalski
1990 | Lavender Law II – Atlanta, GA
Nan Hunter, Professor, Brooklyn Law School; Former Head of Gay & Lesbian Rights Project, ACLU