About Us

Our Mission

The QLaw Foundation of Washington promotes the dignity and respect of 2SLGBTQIA+ Washingtonians within the legal system through advocacy, education, and legal assistance.

Our Vision

A world in which no 2SLGBTQIA+ person will face additional barriers to authentic living, access to justice, or equality before the law because of their queer identity.

Our Services

QLaw offers a wide range of services to 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in Washington, including direct legal services, trainings, consulting, advocacy, litigation support, amicus work, and impact litigation.

QLaw Foundation regularly assists individuals, organizations, or coalitions with their legal needs.  This can include advocacy letters, litigation support, amicus briefing, or co-counseling.  More than anything, we want to see Washington’s 2SLGBTQIA+ communities thrive – so if you need a legal organization on your side, please reach out to us via our contact form.

We also offer a wide range of training and consulting opportunities, including:

  • a training series for courts and legal services organization on best practices for serving 2SLGBTQIA+ populations
  • 2SLGBTQIA+ workplace inclusion trainings for managers and staff
  • Systems consulting, advising, organizational assessments, and audits

Please contact us to learn more about our offerings and pricing.

 

QLaw Foundation is active in Washington’s courts, working on cases to advance LGBTQ2S+ civil rights in Washington. Our legal team has over ten years of litigation experience in state and federal courts, including the Washington Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States.  If you are interested in co-counseling, strategic litigation support, amicus briefing, or other advocacy, please get in touch!

QLaw Foundation was founded in 2008 as a community-oriented sibling organization to the QLaw Association of Washington, the LGBTQ+ bar association for Washington’s lawyers and legal professionals. While our organizations maintain separate boards and finances, we often work cooperatively on advocacy projects related to LGBTQ2S+ rights.  Our LGBTQ2S+ Legal Clinic opened its doors in July 2009, and was almost entirely volunteer-run until January 2019.  Since then, QLaw Foundation has expanded its legal services to include providing community legal resources, attorney and court trainings, systemic advocacy, and impact litigation.  We are proudly an organization that is run by, for, and about 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, grounded in and accountable to community relationships, centering the inherent wisdom our communities hold, and working for racial justice.

About Us

Since January 2023, Pandemic Civil Legal Aid Advisory Committee  (PCLAAC) has been advising on processes to efficiently and more equitably provide legal aid, and evaluate the best ways QLaw’s programs can mitigate harms and redistribute power to ensure more equitable access to justice.

PCLAAC supports and advocates for 2SLGBTQ+ communities by engaging in ongoing dialogue with QLaw staff and making recommendations based on programmatic evaluations to ensure QLaw’s current and future programs, policies, and practices are meeting the needs of the community they serve.

The  PCLAAC is made up of 2SLGBTQ+ community members: who access QLaw Foundation legal services, who work and organize for justice solutions outside the legal system, as well as Pandemic-impacted individuals and QTBIPOC individuals who are most impacted by inequities in the legal system.  PCLAAC is born out of the COVID19 pandemic, and in a time of crisis.

QLaw and the  PCLAAC remain committed to centering the experiences of those most impacted by the ongoing pandemic, that many marginalized communities face, to inform its guidance and stewardship of the ways QLaw will continue to show up for community. The pandemic affects all of us regardless of health status, even if it materially and socially impacts disabled/immunocompromised people in more extreme ways. Forcing people back to work, eliminating funding, and normalizing mass death/mass disabling events impacts us all.

 PCLAAC is Important because:

The law and legal profession are rooted in a history of causing and perpetuating harm; disproportionately affecting people who are queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color, disabled, undocumented, workers in the sex industry, and other folks under the 2SLGBTQ+ umbrella. Recognizing the gatekeeping function that the legal profession has traditionally played, PCLAAC, made up of individuals in the aforementioned groups, centers the communities most harmed by these systems of oppression by ensuring the programs and services provided by QLaw Foundation address these historical and ongoing harms. It is vital QLaw centers and relies on the voices of those most impacted, and therefore PCLAAC was created to reflect these community voices, and advocate for these communities within QLaw and its services.

Co-design:

Together, QLaw Foundation Staff, Board, and PCLAAC strengthen their individual and collective capacity to improve legal services, policies and practices by engaging in ongoing dialogue and collaboration.

They aim to stay grounded in the following commitments:

  • PCLAAC and QLaw work to understand and dismantle the systemic harms to 2SLGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities to create more equitable legal aid and outcomes.
  • QLaw staff and Board remain learners committed to an ongoing and iterative process with the PCLAAC.
  • PCLAAC are seen and honored as leaders and experts.
  • PCLAAC highlights concerns or observations around equity issues, from their community perspective, as insights for QLaw Foundation to examine and address when possible.
  • PCLAAC is assisting QLaw in developing methods for welcoming, receiving, and responding to input from marginalized communities – specifically, QTBIPOC, disabled, and further impacted communities regarding the accessibility, effectiveness, and accountability of QLaw Foundation’s programming within communities.
  • PCLAAC provides advice and experience on social, economic, and racial equity.
  • PCLAAC assists in identifying best practices for improving and expanding equity to inform how QLaw operates.
  • PCLAAC recommends best practices and actively supports community outreach, planning, and engagement around pandemic-related legal issues.
  • QLaw remains accountable to PCLAAC with transparency when recommendations are realized.

Staff

Veronica “Ronnie” Borean
(she/her)

Co-Executive Director
Legal Programs

Rebekah Gardea
(she/her)

Co-Executive Director
Community Advocacy & Outreach

Shaun Wha Nieh
(they/them)

Co-Executive Director
Operations and Finance

Community Advisory Board

Atlas Fernandez
(they/them)
Fortune Johnson
(they/them)
Lee Wapnitsky
(they/them)
Smitty Buckler
(they/them)

Conspiracy of Geniuses

Amari Davis
(they/them)
Janely Salazar
(she/they)
Simbiat
(she/her)

Board of Directors

Anthony Canape

(he/him)

Board President

Minerva Zayas

(she/her)

Board Vice President

Jonathan Barnard

(he/him)

Board Treasurer

Jane Carmody

(she/her)

Board Secretary

Kay Lee

(she/her)

Tenya Moravec

(she/her/ella)

Quita St. John

(she/her)

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