Contact: Carisa Cunningham (617) 426-1350

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) will add to its strength and depth on October 17 when Patience (Polly) Crozier joins the team as Senior Staff Attorney.

Crozier is an experienced trial court litigator and appellate advocate who for the last four years was partner in the law firm Kauffman Crozier LLP, which she co-founded with attorney Joyce Kauffman. The firm specialized in LGBTQ family law, including adoptions, divorce, guardianship of minors, parentage actions, name changes, gender marker changes, and assisted reproduction issues.

“Since I met Jennifer Levi at a NOW conference in the mid-1990s, I have followed and admired GLAD’s work,” said Crozier. “I am excited to be able to focus my work on the groundbreaking LGBTQ issues that mean so much to me and honored to join an incredible team of attorneys and staff who are transforming New England and the nation through their passionate and creative advocacy for LGBTQ equality.”

“For years Polly has been our trusted, rock-solid, smart and calm partner on many high-stakes cases,” said Gary Buseck, GLAD’s Legal Director. “We are so pleased that she will now be our colleague and that we’ll benefit from her wisdom every day.” Crozier joins attorneys Buseck, Mary Bonauto, Ben Klein, Jennifer Levi, and Allison Wright on the GLAD legal team.

At GLAD, in addition to family law, Crozier will contribute substantially to the organization’s youth work. As a private attorney, Crozier litigated a number of significant family law cases, many in partnership with GLAD, including Hunter v. Rose, Adoption of a Minor, and Partanen v. Gallagher.  She has been appointed as guardian ad litem (GAL) for a number of youth, including a young child in foster care, a lesbian teen seeking relief from a homophobic home, and a transgender youth seeking a name change. She has helped trained GALs and judges on LGBTQ issues and is a member of the Family Law Institute of the National LGBT Bar Association.

After graduating from Yale University and Boston College Law School, Crozier interned with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and was a fellow with the ACLU’s LGBT Rights and AIDS Project. She clerked on the Maryland Court of Appeals with The Honorable Irma S. Raker, as well as with the justices of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court.  She has taught on an adjunct basis at Fordham University School of Law and Suffolk University Law School.

Crozier currently lives in Wellesley with her wife, Jessica Keimowitz, and two young children.