In addition, the Bar as an institution can help promote implementation of the recommendations. Listed below are specific recommendations for achieving that goal.

1. Publish, Promote and Widely Disseminate This Report

The Bar should publish, promote and widely disseminate this Report. The Report should be distributed to, inter alia, legal employers, local and national news media (including the legal press and gay press) and gay rights and civil rights organizations. This should help educate legal and nonlegal employers and the press about the problems facing gay and lesbian lawyers in the workplace and ways to help solve them.
2. Publicize the Existence of, and Make Available to Legal Employers, Information That Will Assist Them in the Implementation of the Recommendations of this Report

The Recommendations for Employers in this Report are likely to be more effective if the Bar works to assist and encourage their implementation by legal employers. The Bar should, inter alia, make available to legal employers the names and phone numbers of resources for information on domestic partnership benefits, anti-discrimination policies, and health insurance carriers that provide appropriate coverage for gay and lesbian lawyers and their families. The Bar should notify members of the availability of this information through its World Wide Web site and its periodical publications.
3. Sponsor Continuing Legal Education Programs Addressing Issues of Importance to Gay and Lesbian Lawyers

The Bar and the Bar's Public Service Activities Corporation (PSAC) sponsor dozens of continuing legal education (CLE) and similar programs each year. In the past year alone, the Bar and the PSAC have sponsored programs on immigration law, adoption, family law and estate planning. See BAR PREVIEW (September, 1998). These and other programs address topics of importance to gays and lesbians, but do not always specifically address gay and lesbian issues.49 For example, the Bar's CLE program includes a very popular diversity training session that addresses sexual orientation only very superficially.

To its credit, the Bar, working with organizations such as GAYLAW and this Task Force, has sponsored workshops and other events on issues affecting gay men and lesbians at its annual meeting, but has no regular method for ensuring their inclusion in CLE programs. Therefore, to the extent that it is not already doing so, the Bar should ensure that where appropriate, gay and lesbian concerns are included in CLE programs addressing diversity, discrimination, family law, trust and estates, immigration and other issues.

4. Include Gay and Lesbian Representation on Bar Committees and Task Forces and in Bar Leadership

As it does with women and racial, ethnic and other minorities, the Bar and its leadership should make an effort to ensure that gay and lesbian lawyers are represented in all facets of Bar leadership—on Bar Committees and Task Forces, and as candidates for Bar offices and the Board of Governors. When the Bar's Screening Committee and Nominations Committee consider filling openings on various committees and for candidates for the Board of Governors, the Committees often specifically consider the race, gender and type of practice of the candidates, and also, on occasion, solicit particular individuals for those positions. These Committees should do the same with respect to gay and lesbian lawyers.
5. Advocate a Similar Study of Bias in the District of Columbia Courts

This Task Force did not address the issue of the possible existence or extent of discrimination based on sexual orientation in the District of Columbia local and federal courts. In 1995, the District of Columbia Circuit engaged in a study of racial and gender bias in the D.C. federal courts, but despite repeated requests, sexual orientation bias was not included.

The type of discrimination that can take place in the judicial system against parties, lawyers and witnesses who are (or who are perceived to be) gay or lesbian, is quite different in scope and effect from the workplace discrimination that is the subject of this Report. Moreover, the courts themselves are likely better suited than the Bar to develop the proper methodologies for studying and analyzing the existence of any such bias and for making the proper recommendations for eliminating discrimination in the judicial system.

The Bar can play a role in bringing about such a study. Over the 26 years of the Bar's existence, it has developed a strong relationship with the courts in the District of Columbia. The Bar should encourage the appropriate leaders of the federal and local courts located in the District of Columbia to engage in a study of sexual orientation bias in the judicial system.