The BALIF community received sad news this week that former BALIF Co-Chair Julius Turman had passed away unexpectedly.  He was 52 years old.

Julius served as BALIF's Co-Chair from 2004-06.  Julius was the managing partner at the firm of Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP in San Francisco.  A skilled labor and employment lawyer, he previously was a partner at Reed Smith LLP and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.  In the early years of his career, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

From 2012 until earlier this month, Julius served as a commissioner and the president of the San Francisco Police Commission.  During his tenure, he helped write rules for body-worn cameras, revised the City's use-of-force polices, made reforms recommended by President Obama's Justice Department, and crafted a new policy for the use of Tasers in San Francisco. During his tenure, significant reforms were put into place to make the city safer for all. 

Kelly McCown, Julius' BALIF Co-Chair, stated, "Julius' passing is a true loss to the legal community and BALIF.  He was a terrific Co-Chair and great leader.  He was opinionated but always diplomatic, charming as well as humorous, and a tenacious fighter for the LGBTQI community. He will be sorely missed." 

 

Julius took on tough fights and cared deeply about working on difficult issues.  His generosity and tenacity will be long remembered.  BALIF extends its condolences to Julius' family and loved ones.

On behalf of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), in collaboration with the Filipino American Bar Association of Northern California (FBANC), I would like to invite the MBC and all of its members to the BALIF/FBANC Spring Diversity Mixer. 

 

At BALIF and FBANC, we want to celebrate and bring together the diverse legal workers and attorneys in the LGBTQ community.  Many of us in the LGBTQ community hold complex identities that may not be well represented in the mainstream whether because of our race, gender, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.  Whenever possible, it is important for us to reflect on that diversity and provide support to others within our community who may be different than us.  To that end, we are hosting a happy hour on:

 

Thursday, May 24th from 6PM to 8:30PM
Mr. Smiths
34 Seventh Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

The BALIF Foundation is pleased to announce that its $2,500 summer fellowship has been awarded to Alex Thomson, who is finishing up as a 1L at Berkeley Law.   At Berkeley, Alex serves as a Co-Director of the Name and Gender Change Workshop, where Alex works with clients to obtain court-ordered name and change changes.  Alex is also the Programming Chair of Queer Caucus, the LGBTQ Berkeley Law student organization. This summer Alex will be a law clerk at the NCLR, and will be working on several cases including challenging the ban on transgender people in the military, requiring a school district to respect a transgender student's gender, and securing access to gender affirming care for a prisoner while in custody.  Before law school, Alex worked in Development at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Jewish Federation of Boston, and served on the Finance Committee for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 

 

Congratulations Alex!

In late 2017, BALIF's CCBA Committee debated a resolution at the CA Conference of Bar Associations (CCBA) Conference of Delegates that provides for equal access to rehabilitative and other programming opportunities to LGBTQI and other prisoners at high risk for sexual assault placed in solitary confinement for their own protection. The resolution overwhelmingly passed.  That portion of the resolution has now been included in current legislation being considered by the CA legislature: SB 990.  SB 990 will help ensure that the dignity of transgender people is honored in incarceration settings and that LGBTQI people and others at high risk of sexual assault and harassment have an equal opportunity to access rehabilitative, educational and work programs. SB 990 will also require that people entering jails and prison be given an opportunity to specify their preferred first name, gender identity, gender pronoun, and honorific (e.g., Mr., Ms, Mx.) and will require all facility staff to use the designated name, pronoun and honorific when addressing the person. SB 990 will further require that people housed outside of the general population for their own safety be provided equal access to rehabilitative, religious and educational programs.

The National LGBT Bar Association is proud to launch their  Commit 2 Inclusion campaign this month.

A petition is being circulated to law schools around the nation, asking the legal education community to support diversity and inclusion and reject hate groups.

The campaign recognizes that the rise of hate groups in our society and in our justice system is a direct threat to diversity and inclusion efforts and equality at large. Hate groups are defined by the FBI as those whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons of or with a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity which differs from that of the group's members or the organization.

The petition asks members of the legal education community to publicly acknowledge their commitment to the rule of law and the principles of the  American Bar Association's Resolution 113. That guiding Resolution urges all providers in the legal profession, including law firms and corporations, to attract and retain the talent of diverse attorneys.

Law students, law professors, administrators, and law school groups must work to uphold the rule of law and promote access to justice for all. Hate groups hurt our collective efforts to foster a diverse workplace and a more inclusive society. Hate groups marginalize diverse communities and promote hostility against them. Discrimination and hate have no place in law schools or the legal profession.

National LGBT Bar Association is committed to working toward a more equitable future led by legal professionals committed to the U.S. Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its rule of law.  Join them today.

Location: 

BASF

301 Battery Street, 3rd Floor

San Francisco, CA

 

Please consider making a tax deductible donation to the BALIF Foundation.  The Foundation recently launched and is working to assist BALIF in bringing LGBT judges to the bench and supporting scholarships, stipends and fellowships for law students and attorneys working in the LGBTQ community.  You can donate here.  In the four years ahead, we believe the Foundation's work will be critical in helping to protect our community.

And the Foundation is looking for Founding Circle members through the end of 2018 - pledge and pay as little as $1,000 to always be listed as a Founding Circle member of the BALIF Foundation.

For more information about the BALIF Foundation or how to get involved, contact Jamie Dupree [email protected].  

BALIF is the Bay Area's LGBT Bar Association, which is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, which can engage in political activity.  Its Board members are elected by the BALIF membership and chair various committees of the BALIF bar association.

 

The BALIF Foundation is BALIF's charitable arm.  Donations to the BALIF Foundation are tax deductible because it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.  The BALIF Foundation is dedicated to increasing the number of LGBT judges on the bench through educational programming, supporting LGBT community organizations, and providing scholarships, summer stipends, and fellowships for LGBT  law students and young attorneys seeking to help the LGBT community through legal work.  It gave its inaugural summer fellowship for the summer of 2017.