View Blogs

Novel includes transgender characters and murdered son of powerful New Jersey politician Criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe works in an office located in a second-floor turret of a Victorian home in Cranford. She’s been referred to the biggest case of her career: defending a 19-year-old prostitute accused of fatally stabbing the son of a powerful New Jersey senator in a rundown motel near Atlantic City. It’s a high-profile case that she’s been assigned in part because, like her client, McCabe is a transgender woman. Both are characters in Robyn Gigl’s first legal thriller, By Way of Sorrow , which will be published next year. Gigl, a partner at GluckWalrath ...

Nearly 20 years ago, as a gay immigration attorney and a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA), Daniel L. Weiss wondered why New Jersey did not have the kind of professional associations for gay and lesbian attorneys that he saw in metropolitan areas in the Northeast. Weiss, now a sitting superior court judge in Monmouth County, said although he didn’t know of many attorneys like him at the Association, he believed the time was right to form a group for professional networking, camaraderie and advocacy. In 2003, with the help of Laraine E. Schwartz, a lesbian immigration attorney, they approached Karol Corbin Walker, the first African American ...

In a candid and moving discussion, attorneys spoke about their personal and professional experiences in their journeys as individuals who identify as LGBTQ in the program, “The Many Closets of a Diverse Profession” at the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting. Jeffrey Fiorello, a trustee and chair-elect of the Association’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Section, moderated the panel that featured Arielle B. Adler, Trustee Celeste Fiore, Robyn B. Gigl, Shawn M. LaTourette, Reid Powell, and Brian P. Rice. Many recounted the implicit bias, microaggressions, rejection and discrimination they faced, but also the liberation ...

Originally published in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Rights Section Newsletter Vol. 7, No. 1/February 2015 It’s Time to Add Parenting Partnerships to Your Vocabulary by William S. Singer The term “modern family” has become part of the vernacular. It encompasses the many permutations of the American family as it evolves beyond the traditional dad and mom to include blended families with stepparents, families headed by same-sex couples and single-parent families. Now it’s time to include parenting partnerships to that catch-all term. What is a parenting partnership? Also known as co-parenting, it describes a relationship ...