Local Leader: Lousene M. Hoppe, President, National LGBTQ+ Bar Association
Tuesday, July 6, 2021 at 9:30AMArticle by Becky Fillinger
Lousene HoppeLousene Hoppe is a partner at local law firm Fredrikson & Byron specializing in white collar crime and litigation. She was also recently installed as President of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. With the Twin Cities Pride Festival rapidly approaching, we thought it was timely to speak to Hoppe about the national organization, local affiliates and bringing our authentic selves to work.
Q: Congratulations on your installation as President. Are there local chapters of the organization?
A: Thank you! Yes. The National LGBTQ+ Bar has affiliated organizations throughout the country, including Minnesota’s Lavender Bar Association. We are proud to support and partner with our local affiliates in a number of ways. The Lavender Bar here in Minnesota is a particularly active group; it sponsors a regional conference in January/February that attracts renowned keynote speakers and advocates from around the country.
Q: What are your priorities as President for the next two years?
A: One key priority is to increase opportunities for LGBTQ+ lawyers by promoting diverse and inclusive work environments. We also want to continually expand the ways in which we can support our members, given the innumerable ways there are to practice law. Lawyers are employed in corporations, law firms, government, small businesses. They are solo practitioners, they are judges. Providing them with networking opportunities and tools to increase their success no matter where and how they practice is important. The LGBTQ+ Bar also advocates for its members and for the LGBTQ+ community at large. As the nation's largest bar association serving LGBTQ+ lawyers, we have a unique voice with respect to key legal cases and issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing the organization today?
A: The status of efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in law firms and other legal employers varies greatly from employer to employer. Law students and practicing lawyers alike face very different challenges with respect to their identities and their ability to bring their whole selves to the workplace. Thus, to support its members, the LGBTQ+ Bar is dedicated to providing a wide diversity of programming, advocacy, and opportunities for leadership and mentorship to its lawyer and law student members. Lawyers work in so many different sectors of the business world and government. And the LGBTQ+ community intersects with all other races, ethnicities, religious traditions, and other characteristics. We are always striving to identify the areas of greatest challenge to our members and understand how we can help them meet those challenges.
Q: Can you tell our readers about the LGBT+ gay panic defense strategy and where it stands in Minnesota? Have you been involved in the legislation in Minnesota?
A: The LGBTQ+ “panic” defense is a strategy used by criminal defendants to justify or excuse their act of violence, such as assault or murder, against an LGBTQ+ victim, often a gay man or transgender woman of color. The concept is that a non-violent sexual advance or even the mere discovery of the victim’s LGBTQ+ status is so offensive or provocative that the perpetrator was justified in committing acts of violence against the individual. This defense has been used successfully in getting juries or courts to view the perpetrator as having diminished culpability, including in some cases of extreme violence.
The LGBTQ+ Bar has worked for more than ten years to encourage legislatures and courts to eliminate the use of this strategy, as it inherently devalues the lives of the LGBTQ+ victims and works only by trying to exploit bias against the LGBTQ+ community. We have partnered with advocates like Judy Shepherd, the mother of Matthew Shepherd, to pass legislation in 16 states, so far, essentially banning the use of these types of defenses. Legislation to address this issue has been introduced in Minnesota in recent sessions, but it has not been advanced to a vote. The LGBTQ+ Bar is in regular consultation with state legislators and advocates about this bill. The LGBTQ+ Bar also advocates on issues related to jury access and education, and regularly submits amicus briefs to the Courts on various issues of national importance to the LGBTQ+ community.
Q: Does the association consult on creating inclusive and diverse workplaces?
A: We do! Our Lavender Law 365 program is the only LGBTQ+ inclusion coaching and consulting program designed specifically to enable the implementation of best practice standards for LGBTQ+ equity across law firms, law schools, and companies. We offer a comprehensive training program customized through discussions with organizational leadership to help them foster a more knowledgeable and supportive LGBTQ+ inclusive environment, where legal organizations gain the benefits of having a truly diverse talent pool. When it comes to gender, race, class, disability, and LGBTQ+ inclusion, the legal profession is sadly one of the least diverse. This is unfortunate for the organization, as diversity results in better decision-making and strengthens the bottom line, but it also has a greater impact. We all look to the legal profession as an important partner to achieve greater justice and equity in a democratic society. The lack of diversity in law firms can contribute to distrust of the justice system.
Q: In your career, have you noticed that LGBT+ attorneys bringing their authentic selves to work has had an impact on law firm culture?
A: Yes, I have definitely seen real and measurable progress toward LGBTQ+ inclusion over my 15-year career, at corporate legal departments, law firms, and the Courts. I am lucky to work at a law firm that values and supports its LGBTQ+ lawyers and staff, but that is not the case for everyone working in the legal profession today, and can vary greatly, depending on the region of the country, the time and attention of employer has spent toward inclusion efforts, and other factors. Law students who identify as transgender, non-binary or who have intersectional identities may feel especially uncertain about the extent to which the courage to bring their whole selves to work may affect their success in the legal profession. The LGBTQ+ Bar is dedicated to supporting its members in their professional development and in helping provide resources and education to their employers to work toward a goal of greater justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Even simple steps, like requesting and respecting the pronouns new lawyers use to identify themselves, can make a huge difference toward a culture of inclusion.
