The upcoming conference of the National LGBT Bar Association will give academics a chance to discuss how the Supreme Court’s repeal of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act will impact what’s taught in the classroom.
“We used to like to say that marriage represented more than 1,000 rights and responsibilities. Now it’s going to mean more than 1,000 changes in the law,” says D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the National LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Bar Association, which will hold its 25th anniversary Lavender Law Conference & Career Fair in San Francisco, August 22-24.
The conference draws practitioners, corporate counsel, academics, law students and members of the judiciary. For those teaching the law, there will be discussions about how to reflect recent landmark Supreme Court decisions in their courses.
“How do you teach when the textbook in front of you is dated throughout the course of the semester?” says Kemnitz.
Patricia Cain, professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law and a national expert in federal tax law and sexuality and the law, says the interaction with practitioners at the conference helps inform what she brings to the classroom.
“It’s a chance for those of us in the academy to learn what people are saying the real world problems are, the practical problems,” says Cain. “That gives us an experience and a point of view that we don’t experience in our ivory towers so much. I can think academically about the legal arguments on both sides of an issue, but then somebody is going to tell me, ‘I had somebody who actually came into my office and this is the real life problem that’s going on.’
