Suffredini, Esq. as Public Policy Director. In this role, Kara
will focus on advancing federal, state and local laws and policies
that best protect and support LGBT-headed families. Kara will
also take a leading role in training LGBT parents across the
country on how they can most effectively lobby for the family
protections that they deserve.
“We are thrilled to have Kara join Family Equality Council,”
said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality
Council. “Kara’s skills and expertise in legislative law and
policy are well-known throughout the LGBT movement. Having
followed her work advancing policies that support LGBT people and
families, I couldn’t think of a better attorney and organizer to
have join our team.”
Kara comes to Family Equality Council with over a decade of
experience working on LGBT policy and legislation. She has written
and lectured extensively on LGBT family policy issues, including
parenting and relationship recognition, safe schools, and workplace
equality, and has trained hundreds of activists and elected
officials on legislative drafting, grassroots organizing, lobbying,
and community building for LGBT equality.
“I am very excited to join Family Equality Council at a time when
family issues such as relationship recognition and adoption are
very much at the fore of the fight for LGBT equality,” said Kara
Suffredini, Esq. “Family Equality Council and its supporters
continue to play a leading role in defeating anti-LGBT legislation
and advancing laws and policies that support our families and our
community. I am pleased to be joining an organization that shares
a deep commitment to full equality under the law.”
Kara has most recently served as the State Legislative Director at
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., where
she worked with state and local activists, elected officials, and
corporations to draft and pass hundreds of pro-LGBT laws and
policies as well as to defeat anti-LGBT measures. Kara served as
a member of the board of directors of the National Lesbian and Gay
Law Association for ten years, during a time of tremendous
programmatic and financial growth for the organization, serving as
chair in 2004. She currently serves as vice chair of the Committee
on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity of the American Bar
Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and
as an advisor to the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
Kara started her legal career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable
Joette Katz on the Connecticut Supreme Court and, thereafter,
practiced as a litigation and appellate associate at Updike, Kelly,
and Spellacy, P.C. in New Haven, Connecticut.
She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the
Boston College Law School and recently served as a Wasserstein
Fellow at Harvard Law School as part of a program that recognizes
exemplary public interest lawyers. She is admitted to practice in
her home state of California, as well as Connecticut and the
District of Columbia. Kara will relocate to Boston and will begin
her responsibilities at Family Equality Council on May 12, 2008.