CHICAGO, Nov. 26, 2019 — American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity will honor James J.S. Holmes with its Stonewall Award during a ceremony on Feb. 15, 2020, at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Austin, Texas.
A partner at Clyde & Co. in Los Angeles, Holmes helped the ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, and served as its chair from 2012-15. During that time, he awarded the first Stonewall Award in 2012, and wrote the foreword to “Out and About: The LGBT Experience in the Legal Profession.”
Holmes oversaw passage of ABA policy to ban conversion therapy for minors; and held an LGBT Advocacy Day in 2015 that included a White House briefing on federal LGBT laws, rights and policies, followed by a visit to Capitol Hill to lobby on two bills affecting LGBT citizens. Holmes currently holds the first at-large LGBT seat on the ABA Board of Governors.
He is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the board of governors for the LGBT Bar Association of Los Angeles and the National LGBT Bar Association and works pro bono for the HIV and AIDS Legal Services Alliance.
Holmes received his B.S. and J.D. from Arizona State University.
You can find a photo of Holmes here.
The ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity leads the ABA’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and full and equal participation by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the ABA, the legal profession and society. Created in 2007, the commission seeks to secure equal treatment in the ABA, the legal profession and the justice system without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.
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