Staff

Frederick Braunstein, Legal Intern

Fred is in his first year at The University of Michigan Law School.  At Michigan, he has been active with the Outlaws, helping to coordinate trainings on transgender issues; he also participated in the Latino Law Students Association’s annual Mr. Wolverine fundraiser for public interest students. Fred received his undergraduate degree in Women's Studies and Government from Skidmore College. Prior to starting law school, he taught courses in English and American Culture in China.

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Brittany Brown, Intern

Brittany enjoyed ten years in New York as an actress before deciding to explore a new career. After years of volunteering and advocating for equality, she is now preparing for law school and plans to pursue a career in public interest law. Brittany was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, and graduated from The University of Michigan’s Musical Theatre Department.

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Emily B. Chaloner, Staff Attorney

Aiden Cotter, Legal Intern

Aiden is a first-year student at Brooklyn Law School. Before attending law school, he lived in Northampton, Massachusetts and attended Smith College, where he double-majored in the Study of Women and Gender and Sociology. While at Smith, he conducted research related to many issues facing the LGBT community, with a special focus on transgender issues.  Aiden is excited to intern at TLDEF and learn more about the ways in which the law can be used to advocate for the transgender community.

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Adelle Fontanet, Legal Intern

Adelle is a first-year law student at Columbia Law School.  Before starting law school, Adelle spent a year working the ACLU of Florida and other advocacy groups on drug policy reform, LGBT rights and youth issues. Through the ACLU-FL, she helped run the 'No on 2' Campaign, which was organized to oppose Florida's so-called "Marriage Protection" Amendment in 2008. She received her undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and English at the University of Florida, where she spent a good deal of time advocating for LGBT equality. Her greatest achievement at the University of Florida was running a successful year-long campaign to have "gender identity and expression" added to the University's Student Government anti-discrimination policy.

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Joseph Gallagher, Intern

Joseph is a native of Bethel, CT and is in his final semester in the CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies program where he is studying Political Journalism with an emphasis in gender and sexuality.  Joseph began his undergraduate studies in Musical Theatre and went on to perform on Broadway and off.  For the past year, he has been writing for the Hunts Point Express, a small, community newspaper in the South Bronx.  Joseph hopes to pursue his law degree this fall and is excited to learn about the ways the transgender community can achieve justice through the law.

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Lauren E. Jones, Legal Intern

Noah E. Lewis, Staff Attorney

Noah is a Pittsburgh native and a graduate of Harvard Law School. There he received the Dean's Award for Community Service for his work with the Harvard Transgender Task Force, Lambda, and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund. His work included assisting with the campaign that added gender identity to Harvard's nondiscrimination policy and achieving improvements in insurance coverage for transgender health care. Noah also graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in the history and philosophy of science. While at Pitt he helped lead a successful campaign to get domestic partner health benefits at the university. Prior to joining TLDEF, Noah worked in animal advocacy. He is a long-time vegan.

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Sara Lubetsky, Intern

Sara is in a junior at New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences, where she is majoring in Gender and Sexuality Studies and minoring in South Asian Studies.  Sara is interning at TLDEF through the Gender and Sexuality Studies department at NYU, and will receive credit towards her degree for her work at TLDEF.  Sara looks forward to continuing her advocacy for the rights of transgender people while interning at TLDEF.

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Gabriel Murchison, Intern

Gabriel is a lifelong Massachusetts resident and a 12th-grade student at the Commonwealth School in Boston. He joins TLDEF through a high school internship program.  At home, he has been involved with local- and state-level transgender advocacy, and previously volunteered with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. He hopes to use his time as a TLDEF intern to learn more about the challenges that transgender people face, and especially how those challenges can be addressed through the law.  After graduating from high school this spring, he will continue his education at Yale University, where he plans to stay involved in work that benefits transgender people and others dealing with discrimination.

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Rita Petite, Bookkeeper

Rita is TLDEF’s bookkeeper.  She also works as a bookkeeper for other non-profit organizations and teaches QuickBooks.  Prior to joining TLDEF, she was in charge of accounts payable and payroll for the town of Darien, CT and then used her masters degree in music education to teach.  She taught band and orchestra for over ten years before playing the trombone for national Broadway tours and on cruise ships.  Rita settled in New York City in 2000 and has been performing as both an instrumentalist and actor.  She is a past president of Crossdressers International and is an avid supporter of TLDEF.

Barbara Shulman, Name Change Project Coordinator

Bobbi is TLDEF's Name Change Project Coordinator.  She has a Master's Degree in Education and is a New York State certified school psychologist.  Before joining TLDEF, she worked as a psychologist in the New York City school system and at United Cerebral Palsy.  Later, she worked as an administrator at the New York State Office of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD).  She retired from OMRDD after 35 years.  Bobbi joined TLDEF after retirement because she wanted to help provide needed services to the transgender community.

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Michael D. Silverman, Executive Director

Michael has been a member of TLDEF’s Board of Directors, as well as its Executive Director, since it was founded.  In addition to his work at TLDEF, Michael is Adjunct Professor of Law at Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, teaching courses on gender, sexuality and the law.  He has worked as an attorney in the LGBT civil rights movement since 1994.

As a cooperating attorney with Lambda Legal, Michael worked on a number of groundbreaking cases, including Baehr v. Miike, one of the earliest challenges to restrictions on the freedom to marry, and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.  In that case, Michael represented a coalition of religious organizations opposed to the Scouts’ exclusionary policy, and his brief  (cover, tables, brief) submitted to the United States Supreme Court on their behalf was cited in the opinion of the dissenting justices.  While on a Georgetown University Law Center Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship, Michael taught in the law school’s domestic violence clinic and worked in the legal department at NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Immediately prior to joining TLDEF, Michael worked for four years in New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s Access to Health Care Program and Disability Law Center.  In that capacity, he provided technical assistance to numerous community groups seeking to end discrimination in access to health care on the basis of race and ethnicity.  He also successfully prosecuted large scale litigation in conjunction with the United States Department of Justice against hospitals for violations of, among other things, the Americans With Disabilities Act.  He is thrilled to be back in the movement for transgender equality.

Michael is a graduate of Vassar College and The University of Michigan Law School.

Click to contact Michael.

Kimberly Walters, Legal Intern

Kimberly is a rising second-year student at Columbia Law School.  At Columbia, she has been active with the Outlaws and Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and is on the editorial board of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.  She received her undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Government at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.  She enjoys running and vegetarian cooking.

Click to contact Kimberly.