The Student Leadership Award is the National LGBTQ+ Bar’s highest honor for law students. The award recognizes two law students who have demonstrated leadership within their school and in the surrounding community, especially in the area of LGBTQ+ equality. The 2026 co-winners will receive free Lavender Law® registration as well as travel and lodging assistance to Chicago (up to $500) if they are still a law student at the time of the conference and are able to attend the conference. Those who have already graduated or otherwise will not be able to attend Lavender Law® will receive a $500 cash gift.
Nominations may be submitted by anyone, including nominees themselves. In addition to a letter of support signed by the nominator, three additional letters of support may be submitted with the nomination, but are not required (for a total of four letters maximum). Please carefully review the criteria and direct all questions to programs@lgbtqbar.org.
Nominations for 2026-2027 will open January 1, 2027.
2026 Winners
The Student Leadership Award is the National LGBTQ+ Bar’s highest honor for law students. The award recognizes two law students who have demonstrated leadership within their school and in the surrounding community, especially in the area of LGBTQ+ equality. Congratulations to our 2026 Student Leadership Awardees!
Caitlin Wright (she/they) is a recent graduate of the City University of New York School of Law and holds a B.A. from Creighton University. Prior to law school, Caitlin served as a DOJ Accredited Representative at Catholic Migration Services. At CUNY Law, Caitlin’s leadership through OUTLaws focused on building affirming community spaces rooted in access, care, and material support for LGBTQ+ students and community members. As a two-year Executive Board member of OUTLaws, they helped drive a successful system-wide reform of CUNY’s diploma name change policy, ensuring that TGNC graduates across one of the nation’s largest public university systems can receive diplomas reflecting their chosen names without unnecessary barriers. Caitlin also organized LGBTQ+ legal programming, supported Safe Zone trainings as a Spring 2025 OSII Engagement Student Leader, and created Know Your Rights materials on name and gender marker changes. They also founded and organized CUNY Law’s Queer Prom, which over two years raised nearly $7,000 for TGNC law students while creating a joyful annual tradition centered on mutual aid, sexual health resources, drag, dancing, and queer community. Caitlin’s work is grounded in a deep commitment to immigrant justice, particularly advocacy alongside queer and transgender immigrants, and to radical lawyering that understands legal work as one tool within broader movements for collective liberation. Her experience with CUNY Law’s CLEAR Clinic, the Transgender Law Center, the Free to Be Youth Project, and Catholic Migration Services, reflects a commitment to combining direct legal services with systemic advocacy. This fall, Caitlin will begin as an Immigration Staff Attorney (pending bar admission) at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, where they will provide immigration representation to LGBTQ+ and HIV-affected communities.
Andrew Brennen is a Black queer Kentuckian and recent graduate of Columbia Law School. As an NAACP Marshall-Motley Scholar, he has committed his legal career to practicing civil rights law in the South. Andrew co-founded and chairs the board of the Kentucky Student Voice Team, where he helps lead a constitutional lawsuit challenging Kentucky to provide an adequate public education for every student. For more than a decade, he has organized alongside LGBTQ young people in his home state to oppose “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and to end conversion therapy. During law school, Andrew interned with the ACLU of Kentucky, the National Student Legal Defense Network, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Robin Hood Foundation. This fall, he begins a clerkship with Justice Pamela Goodwine on the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Previous Awardees:
2025
Winner – Mary Berg, University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School
Winner – Nick Hunsicker, Temple University, Beasley School of Law2024
Winner – Jibri Douglas, Rutgers Law School – Camden
Winner – Charlie Ferguson, University of Pennsylvania, Carey Law2023
Winner – Wenxi Lu, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Winner – Kyle Hildebrand, Georgia State University College of Law2022
Winner – Dylan Bitar, Charleston School of Law
First Runner-Up – Edson Abadia Jr., Stetson University College of Law2021
Winner – Julio Cazares, University of Mississippi School of Law
First Runner-Up – Demetrius Williams, Emory University School of Law2020
Winner – Ian F. Tapu, University of Hawai’i
First Runner-Up – AK Shee, University of California, Los Angeles2019
Winners – Chan Tov McNamarah, Cornell Law School, and Candelario Saldana, University of Miami School of Law
2018
Winners – Nicole Schladt and Faris Mohammed, Emory University School of Law
First Runner Up – Ashley Fasano, University of San Diego School of Law2017
Winner – Christopher “Tripp” Zanetis, Stanford Law School
First Runner-up – Andy Blevins, Willamette University
Second Runner-up – Beck Zucker, The George Washington University Law School2016
Winner – Joshua Treybig, Seattle University School of Law
Winner – Kathleen Cullum, Indiana University Maurer School of Law2015
Winner – Adam Grogan, Albany Law School
Winner –Paul Sautter-Walker, Albany Law School2014
Winner – Deborah Lolai, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Runner-up – Brenna Ragghianti, Elon University School of Law2013
Winner – Mieko Failey, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Runner-up – Elizabeth Dooley, Stanford Law School2012
Winner – Michelle Garcia, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
Runner-up – Adam Chang, University of Hawaii, Manoa2011
Winner – Jason C. Beekman, Cornell Law School
Runner-up – Ashland Johnson, University of Georgia School of Law2010
Winner – C. Hays Burchfield, University of Mississippi
Runner-up – Danielle Hawkes, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law