Professor emeritus Arthur Leonard of New York Law School (and Gay City News legal correspondent) was honored there on Nov. 10 by the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of the New York Courts for his 40 years of teaching and scholarship — notably as editor of the LGBT Law Notes, which he started in 1979 as founder and president of New York’s Gay Lawyers Association.
The luncheon was attended by Leonard’s colleagues, LGBTQ movement comrades, and friends. The school announced an annual scholarship in Leonard’s name in support of LGBTQ law.
At the day-long conference “How Deeply Rooted are LGBTQ Rights?: Where We Stand Post-Dobbs,” Leonard spoke on a panel on the constitution and religious freedom, taking us from 1791 up to the current Supreme Court’s expansion of such “freedoms” — often to the detriment of LGBTQ rights.
The Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission was formed in December of 2016 to confront issues in the LGBTQ community faced by employees and litigants. The commission is named after the late State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Failla, who developed a reputation for using his legal expertise to help queer people in court and went on to become the first out gay state Supreme Court justice elected in New York.
