Sexual Orientation Task Force Report

Introduction
1. Task Force Formation and Charge
  
  In July 1995, the D.C. Bar Board of Governors approved a proposal by then-President Robert N. Weiner to create a Task Force on Sexual Orientation and the Legal Workplace. The charge of the Task Force was to study the possible existence and extent of bias on the basis of sexual orientation in the legal profession encountered by members of the D.C. Bar, and to make appropriate recommendations based on the findings of the study. In his proposal to the Board, Mr. Weiner noted that such a study had been suggested earlier that year by the D.C. Circuit Task Force on Gender, Race and Ethnic Bias, which also referred in its Report to numerous requests to conduct such an investigation,[5] and had also been suggested by the Gay and Lesbian Attorneys of Washington (GAYLAW), a D.C.-based voluntary bar organization that concerns itself with the interests of gay and lesbian lawyers and law students.
  Mr. Weiner also noted that similar studies had been conducted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.[6] Studies in other jurisdictions have subsequently been published,[7] and additional support for the work of the Task Force has come from the national level. At the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, the ABA House of Delegates approved the following resolution:
  RESOLVED That the American Bar Association urges state, territorial and local bar associations to study bias in their community against gays and lesbians within the legal profession and the justice system and make appropriate recommendations to eliminate such bias.
  ABA Policy and Procedures Handbook, 1997-1998, p. 184.
  
  The D.C. Bar named as Task Force co-chairs David B. Isbell, a past President of the D.C. Bar, and Martha JP McQuade, a past President of the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia. The group of ten additional members invited by the Bar to join the Task Force consisted of prominent members of the Bar who were diverse in race, gender, sexual orientation, and type of practice. Several members of GAYLAW served on the Task Force, including the then-Co-President and the then-Chair of GAYLAW's Committee on Discrimination. Also serving were the managing partners of two of Washington, D.C.'s largest law firms. The D.C. Bar Board of Governors approved the membership of the Task Force in September, 1995, and the group held its first meeting in October.

[6] See Los Angeles County Bar Association Committee on Sexual Orientation Bias: Report On Sexual Orientation Bias (June 1994); Bar Association of San Francisco: Creating an Environment Conducive to Diversity: A Guide For Legal Employers On Eliminating Sexual Orientation Discrimination (August 1991); Association of the Bar of the City of New York Special Committee on Lesbians and Gay Men in the Legal Profession, Subcommittee on Employment Practices: Preliminary Report on the Experience of Lesbians and Gay Men in the Legal Profession (August 1993).