LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Update
The LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic will not be offered during the 2026-2027 academic year. Clinic Director Alex Chen shared with HLS on Wednesday, April 1 that he has accepted a professorship at another institution beginning in July. This decision comes in addition to the planned departure of another clinic staff member, Deborah Lolai, to launch a new clinic at Fordham University School of Law. We thank Alex and Deb for their teaching and service and wish them the best on their new ventures.
HLS remains fully committed to continuing the LGTBQ+ Advocacy Clinic in its next iteration and will be working with the Legal Services Center, where it is housed, to find its next leader and define its path forward. We look forward to offering the Clinic again, and in the meantime will work with interested students to identify appropriate practice opportunities.
What is the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic?
In the Harvard LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic (the “Clinic”), students work on cutting-edge issues involving LGBTQ+ rights, with a particular emphasis on issues affecting underrepresented communities within the LGBTQ+ community. Clinic offerings include local and national projects covering the spectrum of LGBTQ+ issues. Students will have the opportunity to engage in a range of work encompassing various strategies for advancing LGBTQ+ rights, including impact litigation and legislative and policy advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ clients.
The Clinic’s impact cases include Amaya Cruz v. Miami-Dade County, a federal suit on behalf of three trans young people arrested while participating in Black Lives Matter protests and subjected to degrading treatment while jailed; Hersom v. Crouch, a constitutional challenge to West Virginia’s refusal to change trans people’s birth certificate gender markers; and Lopez v. NYC Department of Homeless Services, a settlement that secured landmark reforms in the New York City shelter system for trans and gender nonconforming residents.
The Clinic’s amicus practice includes briefs challenging the Department of Health and Human Services’ attempt to rescind non-discrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act, and on behalf of senior former corrections officials attesting to the high risk of sexual assault experienced by transgender women in prisons
The Clinic’s regulatory work includes a published white paper on federal agency enforcement of sex-discrimination protections on behalf of nonbinary people, as well as a regulatory comment opposing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s attempt to allow temporary and emergency shelters to discriminate against transgender and gender nonconforming people by denying them access to single-sex shelters consistent with their gender identity. The Clinic is also engaged in boundary-pushing work in the legislative and policy realms, including in the areas of intersex and polyamory advocacy.
The Clinic is housed within the WilmerHale Legal Services Center (LSC), a general practice community law office in Jamaica Plain. LSC’s diverse clinics provide clinical instruction to second- and third-year law students and serve as a laboratory for the innovative delivery of legal services. Students are taught and mentored under the supervision and guidance of a clinical instructor in one of LSC’s clinical practices.
How do I register?
The LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical registration process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
Sample Schedule
| Morning | Afternoon | Evening |
| 9:00 – 9:30 am: Ride to LSC on the shuttle bus with a few other student attorneys 9:30 – 9:45 am: Prepare agenda for check in with direct supervisor 9:45 – 10:15 am: Meet with direct supervisor for weekly check in 10:15 – 10:30 am: Get a cup of hot chocolate and a snack from the break room 10:30 am – 12:30 pm: Draft legislative testimony regarding proposed anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation | 12:30 – 1:15 pm: Go get lunch with other student attorneys at the Cuban restaurant by LSC 1:15 – 2:15 pm: Meet with coalition of community organizations and advocates to coordinate opposition to anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation 2:15 – 2:30 pm: Debrief on coalition meeting with attorney from partner organization 2:30 – 4:30 pm: Research my assignment for impact litigation case with co-counsel | 4:30 – 5:00 pm: Meet with co-counsel to share results of legal research 5:00 – 5:45 pm: Take the red line back to campus |
In the News
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Scholarship from the Clinics: Impact of Bail Practices on the LGBTQ Community
Deborah Lolai’s Article “Out of the Closet, In on Bail” will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Harvard Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review.
March 25, 2025
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Fighting for Privacy, Fighting for Dignity
A transgender individual heads to their local DMV for a standard appointment – a registration renewal or driver’s license issuance. Just like the person at the window beside them, they present their birth certificate. According to current West Virginia law, their birth certificate contains either the incorrect gender marker or the corrected gender marker with an
April 4, 2022