2021 was the inaugural year of the LGBTQ+ Bar’s Legal Services Justice Award. This award recognizes a Legal Services practitioner whose work on behalf of low-income, marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ and HIV+ communities has advanced the cause of justice and equity with excellence and compassion.
2025 Winner
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.
Past Winners:
2024 | Lavender Law - Washington D.C.
Michelle Garcia – New Mexico Legal Aid
2023 | Lavender Law - Chicago
Tina Luongo – The Legal Aid Society
2022 | Lavender Law - Los Angeles
Allison J. Rice – Duke Law School
2021 | Lavender Law - Virtual
Vickie Neilson – The Catholic Legal Immigration Network