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NOVEMBER 11, 2011
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2 0 2 5 SE H aw th o rn e
OGALLA: The LGBT Bar Association of Oregon
strives for equality in the legal community
BY RYAN J. PRADO
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As the decade inches further into the
‘10s, a who’s who of equality organizations
will celebrate milestone anniversaries.
United in the fight against the discrimi­
natory agenda of groups like the Oregon
Citizens Alliance, and anti-gay ballot ini­
tiatives like Measures 8 and 9, activists in
the early 1990s forged a legacy of Port­
land-based collectives. The class of 1991
includes OGALLA: The LGBT Bar As­
sociation of Oregon, founded 20 years ago
to support the needs of LGBT people in
the legal profession. Boasting a network
of some 400 attorneys, judges, law stu­
dents, educators, paralegals and more,
OGALLA’s work has played a critical role
in the advancement of a more equitable
judiciary system.
Sarah Adams, an attorney and teacher at
Lewis and Clark Law School, has sat as
OGALLA’s chair for the past three years.
After coming out as a lesbian, she was drawn
to the organization as a source of support
exercise
free w ill
Virginia Linder (above left, with her
partner Colleen Sealock) and Rives
Kistler (below), openly gay Oregon
Supreme Court justices
November 19 November 1-30
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541 9% 1274 e 800 452 2151
w w w .oregoncoast.org
“[Students] don’t really care often
about what lawyers are doing,” says
Adams. "But telling young people
about how many openly gay or
lesbian judges and Oregon Supreme
Court justices there are can be really
inspiring to them—sometimes also
to the parents who are worried that
their kids’ lives are ruined because
they come out.”
— SARAH ADAMS, CHAIR, OGALLA
for those in the legal profession who were
also part of the LGBT community.
“Twenty years ago, OGALLA came into
being as an organization when Portland
and Oregon were hostile places to be openly
gay and lesbian and practice law,” explains
Adams, noting that at first, OGALLA had
to have a secret membership list. “Five
years ago, I found that I was in a
very different place. I could be
openly lesbian. I had no fear of be­
ing fired from my job. The same
major law firms that 20 years ago
were discriminating are now host­
ing OGALLA functions, and are
now major sponsors.”
Adams says that while OG AL­
LA doesn’t deserve all the credit, it
is an integral part of the evolution
of equality in Oregon’s legal eche­
lons. From the beginning, OG AL­
LA assumed a proactive stance
against statewide inequalities
based on sexual orientation. In
1990, an early steering committee version
of OGALLA lent its support to a Univer­
sity of Oregon professor who was forced by
the school’s dean to. publicly apologize to
>
< his students for announcing he was gay in
O
class. That same year, OGALLA helped
convince the state bar association to revise
its policy on hiring notices after an attor­
ney wrote a homophobic letter to a news­
paper, while also advertising a job vacancy
in the same issue. As a result, the Oregon
State Bar refused to publish hiring notices
from legal firms that discriminate on the
basis of sexual orientation, race, color, na­
tional origin, handicap or familial status.
Over the past two decades, OGALLA
has diversified its impact, using partner­
ships with organizations such as Basic
If )
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