CBA Record May-June 2022

DICE: HistoryWill Judge BY NINA FAIN

Using Our Identities to ReachOthers

J une is LGBTQA+ Pride Month, a time to recognize the contributions and impact of LGBTQA+ people. In June we commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 and ignited the modern fight for LGBTQA+ rights in the United States. This bar year, the CBA Board of Managers has been working with our LGBTQA+ Committee to educate and inform members about issues affect ing the LGBTQA+ community. The committee is chaired by Lily Amberg and Samuel Park. Ray J. Koenig III, incoming First Vice President, and Skip Harsh, a member of the CBA Board of Managers, have also been work ing to create special programming for the bar and the community at large. Koenig and incoming Second Vice President John Sciaccotta were the first underwriters and sponsors of the CBA Implicit Bias Institute, the predecessor of the DICE Initiative. I remember sitting at a Board of Managers meeting waiting for then-President Steven Elrod to recognize me so I could ask the board for financial help with the event. I was seated between Koenig and Sciaccotta. As I organized my notes, Koenig leaned over and asked what I was doing. I told him and, with out missing a beat, he said, “Nina, I will help with that event.” Sciaccotta overheard our exchange, adding “And I will too.” That is what the CBA is all about – people helping each other.

Upcoming events offer an opportunity for CBA members to participate in the Chicago Pride Parade thanks to Midway Moving Company, where Board of Man agers member Ashley Rafael serves as General Counsel, and to view videos featuring interviews with LBGTQA+ members under the guiding eyes of Linda Watson, DEI Chair at Clark Hill. CBA’s Diversity: A Source of Pride CBA members come from diverse com munities, and for me, this is a source of pride. I met a CBA transgender member at a CBA CLE program. She became a regu lar participant. Then, she missed a pro gram. She had no idea that her attendance was a bellwether of programming authen ticity for me. So, when she attended the next event, I asked where she had been. She laughed and responded she’d been litigating a case. She told me she came to the programs because they were deliv ering a compelling, authentic message. As I drove home that evening, I thought of the experiences I have had over my life and career with persons I knew or came to know as members of the LBGTQ+ community. I recalled as a child, know ing family friends who were married and who later adopted a special needs child. In hindsight, I realized that they were a gay man and a lesbian who, at that time, were not free to openly be who they were inside. I remembered asking my mom why people stared at us when we were

all together. My mother calmly explained that the world had lots of ignorant people who did not know how to accept individuals different from themselves. Years later, a gay friend was brutally murdered by a man who later killed another gay man in what newspapers called a hate crime. And I remem ber a law partner who had mentored me moving out-of-state because he felt unwelcomed as a gay man. In each instance, I felt confused, powerless, and ashamed of the people who perpe trated these incidents of rabid violence. Fortunately, social media has brought more recognition, although pain ful, that we must fight to overcome the effects of ignorance and hate, to choose harmony of purpose in our lives, and to survive as a humane society. As U.S. Department of Transpor tation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said while a candidate for president, “We’ve got to find a way to use our identities to reach other people.”

Free Covid Tests at Dirksen In partnership with SHIELD Illinois and the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), the District Court offers free Covid-19 tests tomembers of thepublic in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Covid-19 tests are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (closed federal holidays). An appointment is not required, but advance registration is strongly recommended and can be made through the SHIELD portal at https://shieldillinoisportal.pointnclick. com/login_login.aspx (use agency code df5brbrj).

Nina Fain, counsel to the JS Schirn Family Trust, is a 2020CBAEarl B.DickersonAwardRecipient,member of the CBA Board of Managers and the CBA Editorial Board, and Co-Chair of the CBADICE Committee.

42 May/June 2022