Williams Institute Staff

Brad Sears is the Executive Director of the Williams Institute and a lecturer in courses on disability law and sexual orientation law at UCLA School of Law. Sears graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. During college and law school, he completed internships with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Jamaica Plain Legal Services Center's AIDS Unit, the ACLU's National Gay and Lesbian and AIDS Project, and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. After law school, Sears moved to Los Angeles and clerked for the Hon J. Spencer Letts of the Central District of California. In 1996, he created the HIV Legal Checkup Project, a legal services program dedicated to empowering people living with HIV to address and prevent legal problems. The HIV Legal Checkup Project provided preventive legal services to over 800 clients per year and over 100 UCLA School of Law students received training through volunteering with the Project. In 1997, Sears also became the Discrimination & Confidentiality Attorney for the HIV/AIDS Legal Services Alliance of Los Angeles (HALSA). In this capacity, he litigated and settled HIV-discrimination cases, ending the discriminatory practices of a number of medical practices, schools, and residential care facilities. His work also included settlements that resulted in mandated HIV-training for 22,000 Los Angeles County employees, the overturning of the City of Los Angeles' discriminatory denial of licenses to HIV-positive massage therapists, and the end of a major credit reporting company's policy of disclosing consumers' HIV-status on credit reports. He has also served on the board of directors or advisory boards for Being Alive Los Angeles, HALSA, USC's AIDS Education Training Center, and CorrectHelp, an organization dedicated to the needs of incarcerated persons living with HIV/AIDS.

William B. Rubenstein, Faculty Chair

The Williams Institute's Faculty Chair, William B. Rubenstein, is one of the nation's leading experts on sexual orientation law. Professor Rubenstein authored the first law school casebook in the field, has written and lectured widely on a variety of issues of sexual orientation law, and is among the nation's most-cited scholars writing about these issues. He has taught courses on sexual orientation law at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and UCLA Law Schools. Prior to becoming a full-time law professor, he represented lesbians and gay men in federal and state courts throughout the United States.

Lee Badgett, Research Director

M. V. Lee Badgett is the research director at the Williams Institute. She is also the director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration and associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago (1982) and a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley (1990). Her book, Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (University of Chicago Press) presents her ground-breaking work on sexual orientation discrimination and family policy. She’s currently working on a new book asking whether same-sex marriage will change marriage or change GLB people, drawing on the U.S. and European experiences with same-sex marriage.

Gary Gates, Senior Research Fellow

A Senior Research Fellow at the Williams Institute, Gary Gates co-authored The Gay and Lesbian Atlas. His doctoral dissertation included the first significant research study of the demography of the gay and lesbian population using US Census data. His work on that subject has been featured in many national and international media outlets. He is also co-author of a study examining the interplay of diversity and the location and growth of the technology sector. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University along with a Master of Divinity degree from St. Vincent College and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Brondi Borer, Judicial Education Director

After graduating from Cardozo Law School in Manhattan, Brondi opened a family law and mediation practice. The focus of the practice was on gay family law issues such as donor insemination agreements, child support and co-parenting agreements, domestic partnership and dissolution agreements, and second parent adoptions. She represented many gay clients in litigated and mediated divorce actions. During this period in her professional life, Brondi came to understand some of the enormous challenges individuals and families face when a family member comes out and others are not financially and emotionally supportive. In 2001, Brondi shifted direction in her professional life and served as Vice President of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the self-regulatory body for the interactive software industry, until 2006. Since 1997, Brondi has also taught Family Law and Public Speaking in the Critical Thinking Department of Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. Brondi joined the Williams Institute as Director of Judicial Education in 2007.

Darcy M. Pottle, Education Coordinator

Darcy graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a B.A. in Law and Public Policy. During her undergraduate career, she studied abroad in Lyon, France and Barcelona, Spain and served as a Teaching Assistant for a course called Individual Liberties and the Constitution.

Devon Dunlap, Administrative Assistant

Devon graduated with Honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelors of Arts in Ethnic Studies. While at Berkeley, Devon interned with bridges Multicultural Resource Center to increase the matriculation and retention of under-represented students at Berkeley, and with JusticeCorps, a new branch of AmeriCorps, where she provided legal information to self-represented litigants in Alameda County’s over-burdened court system. Devon plans to pursue an advanced degree in International Law and Public Policy.

Adam Romero, 2007-2008 Public Policy Fellow

Adam Romero holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he won the Kelley Prize and was Coker Fellow, a director of the Complex Federal Litigation Clinic, and an editor of several law journals. Adam received his A.B., summa cum laude, from Cornell University, where his honors thesis won the Sherman-Bennett Prize, the LGB Studies Prize, and the Einhorn Prize. Adam will clerk for Judge Margaret McKeown of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals during the 2008-2009 term, and for Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York during the 2009-2010 term. Adam has published in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and is Co-Editor with Martha Albertson Fineman and Jack Jackson of Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations (forthcoming 2008). During his year at the Williams Institute, Adam's research will focus on family failure and, in particular, the experience of disabled adults who live disconnected from family.

Doug NeJaime, 2007-2009 Law Teaching Fellow

Douglas NeJaime researches and writes on antidiscrimination law and social movement lawyering, with a focus on gay rights and women’s rights. He also teaches Law & Sexuality at the UCLA School of Law. Before joining the Williams Institute, Doug was an associate at the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella, where he focused on intellectual property litigation. At Irell, Doug also represented women’s rights organizations in same-sex marriage litigation around the country. Doug received his A.B. with Honors in American Civilization from Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude and served as a Senior Editor on the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Review. Doug also served as a Teaching Fellow to Professor Lani Guinier. He is the author of “Marriage, Cruising, and Life in Between: Clarifying Organizational Positionalities in Pursuit of Polyvocal Gay-Based Advocacy,” which appeared in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and co-author of “Sex Stereotypes in Same-Sex Marriage Jurisprudence,” which appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender.

Dean Spade, 2006-2008 Law Teaching Fellow

In 2002, Dean Spade founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (www.srlp.org), a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. SRLP also engages in litigation, policy reform and public education on issues affecting these communities. Dean received his J.D. from UCLA Law School. He has taught classes focusing on sexual orientation, gender identity and law at Columbia and Harvard Law Schools. Dean's writing has appeared in the Berkeley Women's Law Journal, the Harvard Lesbian and Gay Review, the Widener Law Review, the Chicano Latino Law Review, the Georgetown Journal of Gender and Law and several anthologies.

Full biographical sketch including list of publications

Christian Cooper, 2007 Research Fellow

Christian Cooper graduated with honors from the University of Southern California in 1998 with a degree in Spanish and international relations. Before attending Loyola Law School, he produced and edited on-air features and the websites for two nationally syndicated public radio shows, was involved in the launch of Univision.com, and was a writer and editor for the Recording Academy, home of the Grammy Awards and Latin Grammys. Christian was the president of Loyola’s gay/straight alliance and competed in the first-ever National Sexual Orientation Moot Court Competition at UCLA. While at Loyola, he clerked at the HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance, Lambda Legal, the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office and the United States Attorney’s Office. At the Williams Institute, Christian is conducting a multilingual study of HIV discrimination in dental care in Los Angeles County. He will start work as a prosecutor next year.

Cliff Rosky, 2007 Law Teaching Fellow

Cliff Rosky writes on family law, antidiscrimination law, and criminal law, with a focus on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and violence. Before joining the Williams Institute, Cliff was an associate at the law firms of Covington & Burling and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, where he focused on criminal and pro bono matters, including the reform of child molestation statutes and the representation of human sex trafficking victims. Cliff received his B.A. from Amherst College with honors in Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. His honors thesis won the Robert Cover Prize and the Law & Society Association’s Prize for Best Undergraduate Paper. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities and the Irving S. Ribicoff Postgraduate Research Fellow. His current research analyzes the significance of gender in more than 200 family law opinions involving gay, lesbian and bisexual parents. His writing has appeared in the Connecticut Law Review. Cliff has accepted a teaching position at the S.J Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah for the fall of 2008.

Amy Atchison, Acting Director, Reference & Research Services & Williams Institute Librarian

Amy Atchison oversees the reference department at the UCLA Law Library and manages the Williams Institute Reading Room and Collection on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy. Amy received both her undergraduate and library science degrees from UCLA. She received her law degree from University of San Diego School of Law. She is the co-editor of the book review column, “Keeping Up with New Legal Titles,” for the Law Library Journal and is a contributor to the “Questions & Answers” column for Legal Reference Services Quarterly. She also is an instructor for the Advanced Legal Research course offered at the Law School. Prior to joining the Law Library, she was a librarian at the RAND Corporation and USC School of Law.

Todd Brower, Judicial Training Consultant

A professor of Constitutional Law at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California, Todd Brower has an LL.M from Yale Law School, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, his A.B. from Princeton University, and was a Fulbright scholar in France. Professor Brower serves on the California Judicial Council - Access and Fairness Advisory Committee and is the author of various publications on the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in the courts of the United Kingdom and California.