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June 01, 2017 Summer 2017

SOGI Commission's 10 Year Anniversary

I was one of the inaugural SOGI commissioners and recall feeling a bit overawed by being included in the same group as some of my heroes among prominent LGBT lawyers. We had a lot on our plate in the first couple of years, but one accomplishment I recall most poignantly was a half-day hearing we organized in Chicago during the 2009 ABA Annual Meeting. We featured personal testimonies by attorneys, including a transgender lawyer, who spoke of the obstacles they faced in coming out and achieving professional success in practice environments that were unwelcoming or even hostile. Their stories really helped drive home to our audience members how dispiriting it can be to face professional animosity for reasons completely unrelated to one’s skills or abilities. The hearings also covered best practice tips for employers and recommendations to bar associations on how to promote change, and the personal and touching accounts from our opening panelists were a captivating prelude to those discussions.

PATRICK MCGLONE

President of the District of Columbia Bar