Welcome to OutLaws

A Message from the Board

OutLaws is an organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) members of the Law School community. Our goals are to provide a community for LGBTQ-identified people within YLS, to provide opportunities and connections for members of the YLS community who are interested in LGBTQ rights, and to advocate for legal issues of interest to the LGBTQ community. Founded in the early 1970s, OutLaws sponsors speakers, supports activism, hosts social and other community-building events, and represents Yale Law School at LGBTQ legal conferences and events. OutLaws brings the Law School community's attention to issues of special concern to LGBTQ students, and serves as a bridge between Yale students, law school alumni, and the legal profession at large.

The YLS Nondiscrimination Policy states:

Yale Law School is committed to a policy against discrimination based upon age, color, handicap or disability, ethnic or national origin, race, religion, religious creed, gender (including discrimination taking the form of sexual harassment), marital, parental or veteran status, sexual orientation, or the prejudice of clients.

Mission

The purpose of OutLaws is to provide community and support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Yale Law students, and to advocate for justice for all LGBTQ+ individuals inside and outside of the Yale Law School Community. OutLaws understands justice for its members and for all LGBTQ+ individuals to encompass justice along all axes of individuals' identities. OutLaws is committed to prioritizing the needs and safety of intersectionally marginalized and oppressed groups both within YLS OutLaws membership and within the wider LGBTQ+ community.

The OutLaws board recognizes and celebrates the diversity of identities and experiences located within queer communities, and thus approaches its work using an anti-oppressive and intersectional framework. The OutLaws board organizes community spaces, programming, and support to be anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-homophobic, anti-queerphobic, anti-transphobic, anti-cissexist, anti-ageist, anti-ableist, anti-colonial, anti-xenophobic, and anti-sizeist.

2022-2023 Sponsors

YLS OutLaws is grateful to the following firms and organizations for their support of our efforts to support the LGBTQ+ community at Yale Law:

Platinum Level - Sullivan & Cromwell

Gold Level - Jenner & Block, Simpson Thatcher, Morrison Foerster

Silver Level - Cleary Gottlieb, Debevoise & Plimpton, Sidley Austin, Paul, Weiss, Covington & Burling, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Gibson Dunn