Shelbi Day joined Family Equality in October 2016 and served as Director of State Policy and Senior Policy Counsel until May of 2021 when she became Chief Policy Officer (CPO) and took over leadership of the Policy Department. In September 2023, Shelbi transitioned out of her CPO role and began an extended leave of absence. She will return as Senior Advisor to the President/CEO and Leadership team in 2024. While at Family Equality, Day led Family Equality’s policy work throughout the United States, served on the Leadership Team, and managed the organization’s amicus curiae (“voices”) briefs that highlight the real-life harm and impact on LGBTQ parents and their children through the use of their voices and stories. Over the last two decades, most of Day’s career has been in civil rights focusing on LGBTQ issues, though she worked briefly in private practice at the boutique law firm of Bouneff, Chally & Koh in Portland, Oregon, practicing in the areas of adoption, surrogacy, and assisted reproductive technology and serving primarily LGBTQ+ clients. Day was a staff attorney in the Western Regional Office of Lambda Legal, where she was a member of the legal team in Sevcik v. Sandoval, a successful challenge of Nevada’s law prohibiting gay people from marrying, and the ACLU of Florida where she was on the legal team for the case that ultimately rendered unconstitutional Florida’s ban on gay people adopting. Day has also worked as a staff attorney at National Center for Lesbian Rights and Southern Legal Counsel, Inc. and started her civil rights career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Day graduated with high honors from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies. She served as a law clerk for the Hon. Charles R. Wilson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She lives with her wife and children in Madison, Wisconsin.
