Meet the Authors

Jenifer L. Levi

EDITOR

Co-editor Jennifer L. Levi is the Director of the Transgender Rights Project at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and a nationally recognized expert on transgender legal issues.

Jennifer has served as counsel in a number of precedent-setting cases establishing basic rights for transgender people, including:  O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue which established that medical care relating to gender transition qualifies as a medical deduction for federal income tax purposes; Doe v. Yunits, in which she represented a transgender student denied the right to attend school because of the clothing she wore; and Adams v. Bureau of Prisons, which successfully challenged a federal prison policy excluding medical care for transgender inmates who came into the system without a transition-related medical plan, among many others. She also has worked on a number of high profile family law cases including the Miller-Jenkins case establishing full parental rights for a Vermont civil union spouse and cases in Connecticut and Massachusetts that established the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Jennifer is a law professor at Western New England University. She serves on the Legal Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and is a founding member of both the Transgender Law & Policy Institute and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

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Elizabeth E. Monnin-Browder

EDITOR

Co-editor Elizabeth E. Monnin-Browder was a staff attorney at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and is now a litigation associate in the Boston office of Ropes & Gray LLP. While at GLAD, Elizabeth contributed to litigation challenging the Defense of Marriage Act and worked with GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. Elizabeth is the co-chair of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association’s Committee on Transgender Inclusion. She is a member of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and a founding member of Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates, which provides free legal services to poor transgender Massachusetts residents.

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Kylar Broadus

AUTHOR

Kylar W. Broadus is a professor, attorney, activist, and public speaker. He is an associate professor of business law at Lincoln University of Missouri and maintains a general law practice in Columbia, Missouri. Kylar is a Division Director of the American Bar Association’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and co-chairs the ABA’s Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. He founded the Trans People of Color Coalition and is a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. Kylar speaks and lobbies on the national, state, and local levels in the areas of transgender and sexual orientation law and advocacy.

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Patience Crozier

AUTHOR

Patience Crozier is a partner at Kauff man Crozier LLP in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her practice includes all areas of family law, particularly adoption, divorce, child custody, assisted reproductive technology, paternity and guardianship, with a focus on serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and non-traditional families. Patience has served as co-chair of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, and she has been recognized by the National LGBT Bar Association as one of the “Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40” (2011), by Boston College Law School with the Daniel G. Holland Recent Graduate Award (2010), by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as an Up & Coming Lawyer (2010), and as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers (2009-2011).

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Benjamin L. Jerner

AUTHOR

Benjamin L. Jerner is the managing shareholder of Jerner & Palmer, P.C. He has practiced law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for over 15 years, concentrating his practice on adoption, estate planning, probate, and legal issues aff ecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients. Benjamin has served on the boards of directors of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Committee on the Legal Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men, the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia, and the National LGBT Bar Association.

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Michelle B. La Pointe

AUTHOR

Michelle B. LaPointe is a partner at Wade Horowitz LaPointe LLC, a firm specializing in LGBT estate planning. Prior to beginning her legal career, Michelle worked on several local, state, and federal political campaigns, served on the board of the LGBT Political Alliance of Massachusetts, and worked at the Massachusetts Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the LGBT Aging Project. She speaks regularly on issues surrounding long-term care planning with a focus on special needs trusts.

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Morgan Lynn

AUTHOR

Morgan Lynn is a Technical Assistance Attorney at Break The Cycle, where she works with governments and schools to help create policies to address dating violence and facilitates trainings on how to to increase service providers’ and educators’ capacity to address the needs of teens experiencing abuse. Before joining Break The Cycle, Morgan was a supervising attorney and manager of the LGBTQ Program at Washington (formerly, Women) Empowered Against Violence, Inc. (WEAVE) in Washington, DC. Morgan coordinated the launch of “Show Me Love DC!” a campaign about healthy LGBTQ relationships and resources for survivors. She also served on the advisory committee for the American Bar Association’s Legal Assistance and Education for LGBT Victims of Domestic Violence Project and is a faculty member for the ABA’s Commission on Domestic Violence. Morgan helped found the Rainbow Response Coalition, which addresses LGBTQ intimate partner violence in the DC area.

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Shannon Price Minter

AUTHOR

Shannon Price Minter is the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the nation’s leading advocacy groups for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Shannon was lead counsel for same-sex couples in the California marriage case and has represented LGBT people in many other family law cases around the country. He is a co-editor of Transgender Rights (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) and a co-author of Family Law for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People (West, 2010). Shannon serves on the boards of Equality California, Faith in America, Gender Spectrum, and FORGE.

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Zack M. Paakkonen

AUTHOR

Zack M. Paakkonen is the co-founder of West End Legal, LLC, a general practice firm that concentrates on representation for the transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, queer, and allied communities in Maine. His practice includes family law, bankruptcy, criminal defense, discrimination law, and civil litigation. Zack is a member of the Maine Rainbow Business and Professional Association and belongs to the National LGBT Bar Association. He also serves as a guardian ad litem in the Maine courts.

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Terra Slavin

AUTHOR

Terra Slavin is the lead staff attorney and project manager of the Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy Project at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. Terra served on the advisory board of the American Bar Association’s Legal Assistance and Education for LGBT Victims of Domestic Violence Project, and participated in a Standards of Practice Working Group sponsored by the ABA and Offi ce of Violence Against Women to develop national standards of practice in civil protection order cases. Terra co-chairs the LGBT DV Issues Committees of the City of Los Angeles Domestic Violence Task Force and Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council, and serves on the Governance Committee of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

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Wayne A. Thomas Jr.

AUTHOR

Wayne A. Thomas Jr. created the GLBT Domestic Violence Attorney Program in Boston, Massachusetts, where he practices as the managing attorney. He primarily handles civil protection order cases and family law matters, provides advocacy to victims and witnesses in criminal matters and represents clients in discrimination cases. Wayne served on the advisory board of the American Bar Association’s Legal Assistance and Education for LGBT Victims of Domestic Violence Project from 2007-09. He is a former co-chair of the GLBT Domestic Violence Coalition in Boston and currently is working on a committee addressing LGBT issues in a redrafting of the Violence Against Women Act.

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Deborah H. Wald

AUTHOR

Deborah H. Wald is the founder of Wald & Thorndal, P.C. Her primary practice areas include parentage litigation, adoption, and assisted reproduction law. She teaches “Topics in Contemporary Family Law” as an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Deborah is a member of the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys, and the Academies of California Adoption and Family Formation Lawyers. She chairs the National Family Law Advisory Council for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and is a member of the Family Law Sections of the American Bar Association and the State Bar of California, as well as the National LGBT Bar Association.

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Janson Wu

AUTHOR

Janson Wu is a staff attorney at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, where he works on a variety of litigation and legislative efforts around transgender rights throughout New England. He serves on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, as a vice chair of the Sexual Orientation/ Gender Identity Committee of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the ABA, and on the Legal Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Janson was recently named a 2011 “Best LGBT Lawyer Under 40” by the National LGBT Bar Association.