K&L Gates Celebrates LGBTQ Pride Month

Seattle - The offices of global law firm K&L Gates LLP are hosting and participating in a variety of events to celebrate LGBTQ Pride month to show support, unity, and equality with the LGBTQ community across the firm and among our clients and the greater public. Among the many events and initiatives through which K&L Gates lawyers and staff are commemorating the month are:

• Lawyers, staff, family members, and friends of a number of K&L Gates offices – including Pittsburgh, Portland, Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Francisco – walked in local Pride festivals and parades.
 
• The firm’s New York and Portland offices hosted educational programs on the importance of Pride month and paid tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots which marked the beginning of the LGBTQ rights movement in America.

• The Seattle office is sending weekly Pride month messages to its lawyers and staff, each featuring an organization that supports the local LGBTQ community, along with volunteer and donation opportunities.

• Other fundraising initiatives include supporting the Ali Forney Center, a New York organization that works to protect LGBTQ youth from homelessness; the LGBTQ Rain Foundation of Essex County, a Newark non-profit that provides young LGBTQ adults in crisis with emergency shelter and housing services; Q Center’s Resilience Campaign, a Portland organization that provides support for LGBTQ community members; and the Albert Kennedy Trust, a UK organization that serves LGBTQ youth who are homeless or living in a hostile environment.

• K&L Gates’ Australian offices have provided training to lawyers and staff in partnership with the nonprofit organization Pride in Diversity to spread awareness of the unique experiences that the LGBTQ community may face in the workplace and the essential role that allies play in creating an inclusive culture.

• The firm’s Taipei office provided pro bono legal services to the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (TTHA), assisting the association in promoting workplace equality and helping companies to establish policies that foster LGBTQ-friendly work environments. TTHA is a non-governmental organization that provides peer counseling, support networks, and a community resource center for the LGBTQ community. 

• A number of offices in the U.S., Europe, and Australia are providing lawyers and staff with rainbow-colored cookies, cupcakes, bagels, drinks, flags, posters, and pins – many purchased from local LGBTQ-owned businesses – during receptions and, in London, an afternoon tea.

“K&L Gates believes that Pride month is an important time to recognize and celebrate the unique backgrounds and perspectives of all our global attorneys and employees,” said Pallavi Mehta Wahi, K&L Gates’ co-managing partner, United States; managing partner of the Seattle office; and chairwoman of the firm’s diversity committee.

K&L Gates is proud to have received a score of 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index every year for nearly a decade, recognizing K&L Gates as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.