Robins Kaplan LLP is pleased to announce that the firm has earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2019 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and has been recognized as a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.” This is the eleventh year that the firm has achieved this prestigious ranking.
Issued each year by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the CEI is a national benchmarking survey and report that reviews and evaluates corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality, including non-discrimination workplace protections, domestic partner benefits, transgender-inclusive health care benefits, competency programs, and public engagement with the LGBTQ community.
Robins Kaplan advocates for LGBTQ rights through a variety of important initiatives. The firm’s Guidebook for Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace promotes a culture of openness and understanding around transgender issues and contains a set of guidelines designed to empower firm personnel with tools to promote greater inclusion. Former associate Lisa Beane, a lead drafter of the guidebook, was recently named to the National LGBT Bar Association’s “Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40” Class of 2019.
The firm also advocates for LGBTQ rights in its pro bono program, including in its representation of Jessica Hicklin, a transgender woman incarcerated at the Potosi Correctional Center, who was allegedly denied necessary health care for the treatment of her gender dysphoria. Working with Lambda Legal, the firm helped secure a ruling that the Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) and its contracted healthcare provider, Corizon LLC, had to provide Ms. Hicklin with the medically necessary, doctor-recommended treatment. The ruling also barred MDOC and Corizon from enforcing Missouri’s “freeze-frame” policy—a blanket ban on providing hormone treatment to any transgender person who was not receiving such treatment prior to incarceration.
Additional information on the Human Rights Campaign and the complete 2019 Corporate Equality Index is available here.
