The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association celebrates LGBTQ+ and ally legal professionals and law students whose work has made a positive impact on the LGBTQ+ legal community.

Legal Services Justice Award

2025 Winner

Elizabeth Kristen

Elizabeth Kristen (she/her) is the Legal Director of the California Women’s Law Center.  Over the past 20+ years, she has worked tirelessly to secure justice for those who otherwise would not have legal representation. Ms. Kristen attended Berkeley Law, graduating in 2001.  Upon graduation, she served as a law clerk for Judge Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Kristen began her public interest career as a Skadden Fellow in 2002. She worked for more than two decades at Legal Aid at Work, leading efforts for gender equity and LGBTQ rights. In 2012, she was selected as a Harvard Law Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow.  In 2015, she received a “California Lawyer of the Year” award from California Lawyer magazine for her work on the Title IX high school athletics class action case Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High School Dist., 768 F.3d 843 (9th Cir. 2014).  She has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer since 2016.

Leading Family Law Practitioner Award

2025 Winner

Joyce Kauffman

Joyce Kauffman is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts/Amherst (B.S. in Child Development), Lesley University (M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology), and Northeastern University Law School (J.D.).

Attorney Kauffman has practiced family law for the past thirty-three years in the areas of divorce, guardianship, adoption, mediation, and reproductive technology.  Throughout, she has maintained a special focus on issues impacting the LGBTQ community in the areas of LGBTQ adoption, relationship recognition, and parentage.  Shortly after graduating from law school in 1992, she was on brief in Adoption of Tammy, the case that secured the right for same-sex couples to adopt in Massachusetts. In addition to thousands of co-parent adoptions in the intervening years, Attorney Kauffman has successfully obtained multiple-parent adoptions for a number of LGBTQ families and convinced the Registry of Vital Records to issue amended birth certificates reflecting a child’s multiple parents. She also represented the first lesbian couple in Massachusetts to obtain a birth certificate upon the birth of a child who had been conceived through reciprocal IVF. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Goodridge decision, Attorney Kauffman has represented numerous individuals in the preparation of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements as well as in same-sex divorces.

Attorney Kauffman is a trained mediator, collaborative lawyer, coach, and conciliator. Her background in child development and counseling psychology, in combination with her extensive family law experience, make her uniquely qualified in the field of dispute resolution. Attorney Kauffman is a frequent presenter at continuing legal education seminars, conferences, community organizations, and universities.  She has published a number of articles concerning the legal rights of LGBT families.

Attorney Kauffman is a founding member of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NFLAC) and former President of the Board of Directors of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). She has served on the Board of Directors of Family Equality and as a member and co-chair of the Board of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association. Attorney Kauffman was a member of the coalition that successfully lobbied for the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act (effective January 1, 2025).

Attorney Kauffman is the recipient of several awards; In 2023, she was selected for inclusion to the inaugural class of the Lawyers Hall of Fame sponsored by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Congratulations to our 2025 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 recipients!