Please note: In November 2019, the Leading Practitioners Award was renamed to the Leading Family Law Practitioner Award.
The National LGBTQ+ Bar Leading Family Law Practitioner Award recognizes lawyers whose work supports LGBTQ+ families, in all of their configurations. Family law involves more than family creation and relationship dissolution. LGBTQ+ family law may also include allied practices in immigration, tax, military, benefits, children’s rights and welfare, disability rights, employment, bankruptcy, landlord-tenant, health care, decision-making and managing costs.
The Award is given each year to one individual who is in the private practice of law, and has improved the lives of members of LGBTQ+ families, parents or children through outstanding legal work, demonstrated by a longstanding commitment to providing legal services of a high quality to the LGBTQ+ community; by commitment to significant pro bono work for LGBTQ+ families, parents or children; or by leadership in significant impact litigation or advocacy affecting or in support of LGBTQ+ families, parents, or children while engaged in the private practice of law.
Each year, the Director of the LGBT Family Law Institute will appoint a committee to make a single nomination subject to approval of the LGBTQ+ Bar.
2025 Winner
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.
Past Winners:
2024 | Lavender Law - Washington DC
Kim Surratt – Surratt Law Practice, P.C.
2023 | Lavender Law - Chicago
Keith Doniphan Elston – Elston Law Office, PLLC
2022 | Lavender Law - Los Angeles
Deborah H. Wald – The Wald Group
2021 | Lavender Law - Virtual
Carrington “Rusty” Madison Mead – Carrington Madison Mead, Esq.
2020 | Lavender Law - Virtual
Abby Rubenfeld – Rubenfeld Law Office, PC
2019 | Lavender Law - Philadelphia
Tiffany L. Palmer – Jerner & Palmer, P.C.
Fabiana Quaini – Quaini Law Firm2018 | Lavender Law - New York City
Elizabeth Schwartz – Elizabeth F. Schwartz, P.A.
Zack Paakkonen – Portland Legal, LLC2017 | Lavender Law - San Francisco
Debra E. Guston – Guston and Guston, LLP
Heather Fann – Fann Law, LLC2016 | Lavender Law - Washington, D.C.
Noemi Masliah – The Masliah Firm
Cynthia Barrett – Cynthia Barrett, Attorney at Law2015 | Lavender Law - Chicago
Bridget Wilson – The Dean Law Group, APLC
2014 | Lavender Law – New York
Carol Buell, Partner, Weiss, Buell & Buell
Judith Turkel, Turkel Forman LLP2013 | Lavender Law – San Francisco
Bill Singer, Partner, Singer & Fedun, LLC