Overview
(April 19, 2018, Washington, DC) — Steptoe partner Sarah Gordon has been named to the LGBT Bar’s “Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40” list. Each year, the LGBT Bar recognizes LGBT legal professionals under the age of 40 who have distinguished themselves in their field and have demonstrated a profound commitment to LGBT equality. Gordon and the other awardees will be recognized at the 30th Annual Lavender Law Conference and Career Fair in New York in August.
At Steptoe, Gordon maintains a multifaceted litigation practice that encompasses insurance and reinsurance, employee benefits, and professional liability. She has been centrally involved on behalf of insurers in coverage disputes over sports-related brain injury claims (concussions), personal and advertising injury claims, cyber coverage claims, and abuse claims. On the reinsurance side, Gordon has extensive experience representing cedents and reinsurers in the life, health, and property/casualty industries.
Most recently, Gordon took the lead in Steptoe’s partnership with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to draft an amicus brief in the pending US Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, involving the baker who refused to provide a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Working with HRC, she successfully won the support of 37 businesses – companies including Airbnb Inc., American Airlines, Apple, and Amazon.com Inc. – on the brief to argue that a decision favoring the baker would weaken anti-discrimination laws and hamper businesses’ abilities to protect their employees from discrimination.
The Masterpiece brief was Gordon’s second amicus brief on behalf of the LGBT community. Earlier in her career, she was part of the Steptoe team that drafted an amicus brief on behalf of the California National Organization of Women and Feminist Majority in the battle over Proposition 8, which denied same-sex couples the right to marry.
Gordon is an active member of the Steptoe Pride Alliance and, outside the firm, serves on the National Women’s Law Center Leadership Advisory Committee and ARIAS Women’s Networking Committee. She was also appointed to the ABA’s Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s Special Standing Committee on Diversity in the Profession and served as vice chair of the ABA’s Excess, Surplus Lines and Reinsurance section.
About Steptoe
In more than 100 years of practice, Steptoe has earned an international reputation for vigorous representation of clients before governmental agencies, successful advocacy in litigation and arbitration, and creative and practical advice in structuring business transactions. Steptoe has more than 500 lawyers and other professional staff across offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington. For more information, visit www.steptoe.com.
