LGBT Rights Q&A: Rutgers Law-Camden Advocates Discuss Legal Battles Behind and Ahead

While the event is part of a nearly three-decade tradition at Rutgers Law—Camden to celebrate extraordinary service to the community, let’s expand the conversation to examine the LGBT advocacy championed this year with a series of questions for Palmer asked by her former law school classmate Jason Cohen ‘98.

Now a clinical professor at Rutgers Law—Camden, Cohen directs the law school’s lawyering program, teaches legal analysis, writing and research, advanced writing, and research hybrid clinic for the legal department of the Mazzoni Center, and serves as the faculty advisor for the LGBT student organization, Outlaws. Prior to joining the law faculty in 2005, he worked as a litigator with the law firm of Stradley Ronon in Philadelphia, where he focused on a range of complex commercial and employment matters, including cases involving discrimination.

COHEN: You and I were in law school together, and were “out" as members of the LGBT community.  We both were also transplants from less-than-progressive states.  After coming here, the atmosphere was fine, but you and I both experienced some homophobic incidents.  How do you think the environment for LGBT law students and young attorneys has changed in the past 20 years?

PALMER: I think societal attitudes towards LGBT people have evolved tremendously in the past 20 years.  When we started law school, Ellen DeGeneres hadn’t come out yet, there were no gay characters on major sitcoms, and no state in the county had same-sex marriage.  Before Matthew Shepherd’s murder in 1998, there was little awareness of LGBT hate crimes. It is no longer socially acceptable to make gay slurs now when 20 years ago, it was almost expected.  I think people now are more willing to be “out” as a result and this affects all of society, including the legal community.

COHEN: You started practicing law at Equality Advocates as an Equal Justice Works Fellow attorney almost immediately upon graduation, when some of us were just learning which desk drawer to put our pencils in.  Is that something that’s characteristic of public interest legal work?  Is it a “thrown to the wolves” way to learn the law?  What advice would you give law students who would like to follow in your footsteps about learning the ins and outs of the actual practice of law?

PALMER: Yes, I believe to immediately have a caseload that you are responsible for can be a unique characteristic of public interest work.  This means you may be going in to court and representing clients in hearings during your first week of work. It is both a great benefit and a burden.  It means you learn quickly and push yourself to be the best you can.  It may mean that you spend two to three times longer than your opposing counsel in preparing for a hearing.  However, what I realized is that you can’t do it all alone.  My advice is to ensure you have access to good supervision and experienced mentors.  Young public interest attorneys should partner with more experienced attorneys to co-counsel cases, join Bar Association committees, and connect with Board members of your agency to find those people you can turn to for advice.

COHEN: You’re now in private practice with your own firm, Jerner & Palmer, P.C.  How does that work differ from your public interest law practice you began your career with?  Is it possible to perform fee-for-service private practice work and still have a community and civil rights impact?

PALMER: The major difference between my public interest work and my current practice is the client population. Even though in both instances, I am practicing LGBT family law, my public interest clients were very low-income people.  They struggled with poverty issues of daily survival in addition to discrimination issues based upon their LGBT status.  I often felt like a social worker, triaging major crises such as homelessness on top of their legal issues.  Now, my clients have more financial means, but they still face the burdens of LGBT discrimination.  They still face the risk of losing the children they have parented.

I think private attorneys can still have a significant community and civil rights impact.  In our firm, we regularly speak at community events and forums to help education the LGBT community about their legal rights.  We have always done a lot of pro bono work.  We have also represented clients for fees in cases that have potential to impact a change in the law.  Most of our appellate work involves impact cases and may result in a change in the law that would create a precedent for future cases.  We also work toward administrative and policy reform changes. As a fellow of the American Academy of Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, I have worked with courts and with the Department of Health to help develop Pennsylvania procedure with respect to the parentage of children who are conceived via assisted reproductive technology. 

COHEN: In the clinic I have at Rutgers, we performed research and writing projects for David Rosenblum, who’s also being honored with you, and the Mazzoni Legal Department.  The work involved many legal projects for transgender clients.  These issues ranged from insurance issues to Pennsylvania statutory requirements for gender-appropriate identification and name changes.  Do you agree with me that the legal issues and needs involving the “T” of our LGBT community are the next significant civil rights frontier?

PALMER: When I started practicing law, the debate in our agency was about whether we would represent or include transgender people at all in our work.  The Center was one of the first lesbian and gay legal organizations to realize that the answer had to be “yes” to transgender inclusion. Now “LGB” and “T” representation has become the standard in organizations.  However, there is still a long way to go. I believe transgender people are paving an expansion of LGBT rights for everyone, because L, G, B, and T are all part of a larger movement that is really at its core about gender and securing rights and protections for all people for who do not conform to gender norms.

COHEN: So much litigation, press coverage, and public attention has been devoted to legal recognition for same-sex marriage.  And you’ve been such a pioneering lawyer in this area, both for Pennsylvania and nationally.  What are some of the other major issues involving LGBT folk that perhaps are a bit less well known?

PALMER: I think the struggles of achieving true LGBT equality are left behind after the media attention dies down.  I think so many people believe that once marriage equality is achieved- we have “won” and the work is over.  However, as the recent the gay bashing attack in Philadelphia demonstrates, even the right to marriage can’t protect LGBT people from violent attacks in a state that doesn’t have a hate crimes law that includes sexual orientation or gender identity.  Also, Pennsylvania is one of the few marriage equality states that does not have a statewide law protecting people from employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity. So a married LGBT person could ask his employer to put his spouse on his health insurance plan and put a wedding picture on his desk and be fired on the basis of his sexual orientation. We also continue to battle in court the issue of parentage for children conceived through assisted reproduction in LGBT relationships.  Courts are grappling with the complexities of the relationship between marriage and parentage and biology and parentage.

COHEN: As mentioned, you and I both came from out of state to go to Rutgers–Camden, and both of us stayed here, built our careers in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area, and remained connected to our law school alma mater.  Why do you suppose that is?

PALMER: I knew I wanted a career in LGBT rights work and there were very few opportunities in my home state of Arizona.  That is one the reasons I decided to go to law school on the east coast. Rutgers provided me unique opportunities such as the joint degree in law and public policy. Philadelphia has such a vibrant and strong public interest legal community; I knew my opportunities to find a job doing exactly what I wanted to do would have to be here.  I also just fell in love with Philadelphia and now that I have been here 20 years, it is home.