KARA SUFFREDINI JOINS FAMILY EQUALITY COUNCIL AS PUBLIC POLICY DIRECTOR
by: Cathy Renna, OIA Newswire

BOSTON, MA - Family Equality Council today announces the hiring of Kara
Suffredini, Esq. as Public Policy Director. In this role, Kara will focus
on advancing federal, state and local laws and policies that best protect
and support LGBT-headed families. Kara will also take a leading role in
training LGBT parents across the country on how they can most effectively
lobby for the family protections that they deserve.

"We are thrilled to have Kara join Family Equality Council," said Jennifer
Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council. "Kara's skills and
expertise in legislative law and policy are well-known throughout the LGBT
movement. Having followed her work advancing policies that support LGBT
people and families, I couldn't think of a better attorney and organizer to
have join our team."

Kara comes to Family Equality Council with over a decade of experience
working on LGBT policy and legislation. She has written and lectured
extensively on LGBT family policy issues, including parenting and
relationship recognition, safe schools, and workplace equality, and has
trained hundreds of activists and elected officials on legislative drafting,
grassroots organizing, lobbying, and community building for LGBT equality.

"I am very excited to join Family Equality Council at a time when family
issues such as relationship recognition and adoption are very much at the
fore of the fight for LGBT equality," said Kara Suffredini, Esq. "Family
Equality Council and its supporters continue to play a leading role in
defeating anti-LGBT legislation and advancing laws and policies that support
our families and our community. I am pleased to be joining an organization
that shares a deep commitment to full equality under the law."

Kara has most recently served as the State Legislative Director at the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., where she worked
with state and local activists, elected officials, and corporations to draft
and pass hundreds of pro-LGBT laws and policies as well as to defeat
anti-LGBT measures. Kara served as a member of the board of directors of
the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association for ten years, during a time of
tremendous programmatic and financial growth for the organization, serving
as chair in 2004. She currently serves as vice chair of the Committee on
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity of the American Bar Association
Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and as an advisor to the
Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
Kara started her legal career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Joette
Katz on the Connecticut Supreme Court and, thereafter, practiced as a
litigation and appellate associate at Updike, Kelly, and Spellacy, P.C. in
New Haven, Connecticut.
She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Boston
College Law School and recently served as a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard
Law School as part of a program that recognizes exemplary public interest
lawyers. She is admitted to practice in her home state of California, as
well as Connecticut and the District of Columbia. Kara will relocate to
Boston and will begin her responsibilities at Family Equality Council on May
12, 2008.

About the Family Equality Council

Family Equality Council is proud to be the national non-profit organization
dedicated to securing family equality. We recognize and believe that the
laws, provisions and ordinances that hurt LGBTQ-headed families also hurt so
many others-single parents, blended families, families of color, etc. To
that end, Family Equality Council is standing strong to defeat anti-family
legislation and promote pro-family legislation. For more information,
please visit www.familyequality.org. Full Story. [5/6/08]