Reed Smith has positioned itself as an employer of choice for members of the LGBT community.
Reed Smith attorneys have served on the board of Lambda Legal and provided pro bono support for legal issues affecting the LGBT community. Indeed, former Global Chair of Litigation, Raymond Cardozo, argued a pro bono case concerning the privacy rights of an LGBT client in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Reed Smith has also partnered with our client, Bank of New York Mellon, to provide pro bono support to the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund Name Change Project. The New York City-based fund is working with the Garden of Peace Project that helps transgender men and women navigate the legal work needed to modify their monikers.
Reed Smith has not only provided full domestic partner benefits to our LGBT colleagues for many years, but we were also one of the first firms to adopt the "gross up" payment in 2008 to mitigate the impact of federal law that treats money spent by an employee for his/her domestic partner's medical insurance as taxable income, while that paid for a spouse’s medical insurance is not.
Our efforts to create an inclusive workplace have resulted in the advancement of our LGBT colleagues to positions of leadership in the firm as office managing partners and leaders of important firm committees.