Honoring Chester Day, Stephen Chien, and Aaron Tidman
Chester Day
Associate General Counsel at OpenAI
Stephen Chien
Vice President, Global Compliance Operations at Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Aaron Tidman
Director & Assistant General Counsel, Compliance at Pinterest
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
5 pm to 7 pm Pacific
Address provided only to registrants
San Francisco
Online registration is here. Please email Nicole Fox and Paul Thaler at developmentstaff@lgbtqbar.org if there are any questions.
ABOUT
Chester Day (he/him) is currently an Associate General Counsel on the litigation and regulatory team at OpenAI. Chester previously spent 16 years at Google, first managing worldwide patent litigation for Android, Chrome and Apps products, and then running the Litigation Advance team that oversees a portfolio of proactive litigation and amicus strategy. He also worked on the steering committee for Google’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group between 2016 and 2020. Prior to joining Google, Mr. Day was an IP litigation associate at Orrick’s Silicon Valley office, and a 2L summer law clerk at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Chester received his law degree from Harvard Law School, and his B.S. (CS) and B.A. (AAS) from Stanford University. While he grew up in Florida, he has also lived in Taiwan, France, Australia, and Japan before settling down in San Francisco.
Stephen Chien (he/him) is Stephen Chien is Vice President of Global Compliance Operations at Gilead Sciences, Inc. At Gilead, Stephen has held a variety of roles within Legal and Compliance, including leading the company’s Asia Legal and Compliance teams, establishing its Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption function, and serving as interim Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. He has also contributed to industry-wide efforts to strengthen ethical standards through involvement in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Ethics Initiative, the IFPMA Ethics and Business Integrity Committee, and a PhRMA steering committee supporting the launch of the U.S. Consensus Framework for Ethical Collaboration.
Stephen has maintained a long-standing commitment to pro bono and volunteer service. He has worked on pro bono matters with the ACLU, MALDEF, the Asian Law Caucus, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, among others, on matters involving civil rights, racial and LGBTQ discrimination, and access to legal representation. His work includes successful challenges to racial profiling in Maricopa County, Arizona, prisoner access to courts, as well as access to improve access to counsel in the State of Montana.
Stephen received his Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy, with a minor in Computer Science, from Stanford University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He began his career as a federal law clerk for the Hon. Vaughn R. Walker, Chief Judge of the Northern District of California in San Francisco, and later practiced law at Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP in New York and Covington & Burling LLP in San Francisco. Stephen is admitted to practice in California and New York.
Aaron Tidman (he/him) is Assistant General Counsel and Director at Pinterest, where he leads the Regulatory Compliance team and previously served as Interim Chief Compliance Officer. Before Pinterest, Aaron was Senior Counsel at Gilead Sciences, advising on legal and compliance matters for the company’s anti-bribery and sanctions programs. He began his career in Washington, DC, as a white-collar defense and litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Mintz Levin.
Aaron has been proudly out in the workplace since his first legal role during his 1L summer at the New York Attorney General’s Office—at a time when doing so carried far greater professional risk. Throughout his career, Aaron has paired high-impact legal work with sustained LGBTQ+ advocacy. He devoted hundreds of pro bono hours at Debevoise, including work with Lambda Legal advocating for stronger federal protections for LGBTQ+ children in foster care. He later helped bring Lambda Legal to Mintz, co-authoring an amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Previously recognized as one of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association’s “40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40,” Aaron has also led LGBTQ+ employee communities in-house: at Gilead, he helped grow the LGBTQ+ ERG to more than 800 employees globally, even driving the truck pulling Gilead’s float in the San Francisco Pride Parade. At Pinterest, Aaron led the global LGBTQ+ Community Group through the isolation of COVID by creating connection through virtual concerts, cooking demonstrations, and family-focused programming for LGBTQ+ parents.
Online registration is here. Please email Nicole Fox and Paul Thaler at developmentstaff@lgbtqbar.org if there are any questions.
LGBTQ+ Bar members attending receive a discounted rate.
For help signing into your account to register, please contact our staff at developmentstaff@lgbtqbar.org.
The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association and Foundation is proud to honor legal professionals who advance LGBTQ+ equality through words and actions to create more secure and welcoming workplaces. We invite you to join us as we honor Chester, Stephen, and Aaron for their efforts to recognize and expand LGBTQ+ legal diversity in the profession.
For more information about sponsoring this and future events, please contact Paul Thaler or Nicole Fox by email (paul@lgbtqbar.org, nicole@lgbtqbar.org) or phone (202.637.7663).
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR EARLY SPONSORS





