Event Overview
Thursday, January 19, 2023
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM — LGBTQ+ Vanguard Award Ceremony and Reception
Offsite at Holland & Knight LLP (31 W 52nd St, Floor 12)
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM — Virtual CLE Program
2.0 MCLE Credits
1.0 Diversity, Inclusion, and Elimination of Bias
1.0 Areas of Professional Practice
This program is transitional and is suitable for all attorneys
including those newly admitted.
Section Chair
Christopher R. Riano, Esq.| Holland & Knight LLP; New York, NY
Program Chair
Leslie C. Treff, Esq.| Law Office of Leslie Treff; New York, NY
$15 Virtual Program Registration Fee
Optional Add-On
$15 LGBTQ+ Vanguard Award Ceremony and Reception Registration Fee
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
2.0 MCLE Credits
1.0 Diversity, Inclusion, and Elimination of Bias
1.0 Areas of Professional Practice
This program is transitional and is suitable for all attorneys
including those newly admitted.
1:00 p.m. – 1:10 p.m.
Welcome and Introduction
Speaker
Christopher R. Riano, Esq. | Holland & Knight LLP, New York, NY
1:10 p.m. – 2:10 p.m.
Beyond 303 Creative: LGBTQ Legal Rights in 2023 and Beyond
This panel will explore current issues in the LGBTQ community that include, and go beyond, the first amendment questions currently being litigated at the United States Supreme Court in 303 Creative.
Considering the continued failure to pass the Equality Act and recent passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, LGBTQ rights are going to continue to be fought for at the state and federal levels. This panel will explore these issues in order to better understand what is coming in the LGBTQ rights space for the community going forward.
Speaker
Matthew J. Skinner, Esq. | Office of Court Administration, New York, NY
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Esq. | Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc., New York, NY
Julie Silverbrook, Esq. | iCivics, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Moderator
Christopher R. Riano, Esq. | Holland & Knight LLP, New York, NY
1.0 Credit in Diversity, Inclusion, and Elimination of Bias2:10 p.m. – 2:20 p.m.
Break
2:20 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.
LGBTQ+ Issues in ADR
LGBTQ+ issues have arisen more and more frequently in arbitration and mediation. Those issues include implicit bias of the arbitrators and mediators, and involve workplace issues, family law matters, trusts and estates, among others.
Speaker
Leslie C. Treff, Esq. | Law Office of Leslie Treff, New York, NY
Colleen M. Meenan, Esq. | Meenan & Associates, LLC, New York, NY
Concetta G. Spirio, Esq. | Concetta G. Spirio, Esq., Attorney & Counselor at Law, Islip, NY
1.0 Credit in Areas of Professional Practice3:20 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Concluding Remarks
Speaker
Leslie C. Treff, Esq. | Law Office of Leslie Treff, New York, NY
3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
LGBTQ Law Section Business Meeting
2023 LGBTQ+ Vanguard Award Winner
Amy E. Schwartz-Wallace, Esq.
Director, Legal Training and Technical Assistance, Empire Justice Center
Amy Schwartz-Wallace (she/her) is the Director of Legal Training and Technical Assistance at the Empire Justice Center, a statewide civil legal services organization. Amy has overseen their statewide domestic violence practice for two decades and is highly regarded throughout the state for her work in this substantive law area. For over 15 years Amy has also overseen Empire Justice’s LGBTQ rights practice, including numerous grants addressing the intersection of LGBTQ rights and family violence. In this role, she has trained hundreds of judges, court staff, civil legal services and private bar attorneys, Attorneys for the Child, and community-based advocates throughout the state. As a seasoned policy advocate, Amy’s work has directly resulted in many domestic violence and LGBTQ-related law and policy changes on local, state, and national levels. She engages in policy analysis and legislative advocacy and has drafted or co-authored numerous LGBTQ and domestic violence-related bills that have been chaptered in New York.
Amy has also been the lead counsel on several cutting-edge LGBTQ rights impact litigation cases, most notably the 3rd Department’s decisions in Dickerson v. Thompson (2010, 2011) which provided civil union spouses with access to the New York Supreme Court for legal dissolution of their out-of-state civil unions. The Dickerson rulings changed the legal landscape in New York and have been widely cited as precedent in other states, as well as to 2nd Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. As lead counsel in the 4th Department’s O’Reilly-Morshead v. O’Reilly-Morshead (2018), Amy successfully argued that civil union spouses are entitled to equitable distribution in New York. In addition to appearing as amici in a number of appellate cases, she most recently collaborated with the National Center to co-author the brief in Tomeka N.H. v. Jesus R. (2020) in the 4th Department seeking parental standing for a non-birth third parent.
From 2016-2018, Amy was appointed Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association & Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York’s ground-breaking statewide joint Presidents’ Initiative aimed at improving legal services for victims of domestic violence. She is currently NYSBA’s Co-Chair of the Domestic Violence Committee of the Family Law Section, as well as serves on the NYSBA House of Delegates and the Nominating Committee for the 7th Judicial District. Amy is a member of NYSBA’s LGBTQ Law Section and the National LGBTQ Bar Association. She founded the LGBTQ Committee of the Monroe County Bar Association in Rochester.
From 2006-2008, Amy was an Adjunct Law Professor at Syracuse University College of Law where she taught an upper-level course on domestic violence law.
Amy has received numerous awards in recognition of her work and is a graduate of Drew University and University at Buffalo School of Law. With her lovely wife, teenage son, and their precious dog, she makes her home in Rochester.