LGBTQ+ Clinic Students Fight for Legislative Change to Protect New York Families

To help those families feel more secure, particularly amid concerns about an increasingly conservative U.S. political and judicial environment, students in Brooklyn Law School’s LGBTQ+ Clinic worked throughout the spring semester to help pass a key piece of legislation in the New York State legislature. The clinic partnered with Family Equality, a national nonprofit fighting to support and protect LGBTQ+ families, to advocate for change.  

With the oversight of Associate Dean of Experiential Education Susan Hazeldean, director of the LGBTQ+ Clinic, three students—Spencer Barich ’26, Chelsea Jones ’26, and Justin “Murph” Murphy ’26 –conducted legislative briefings and met with members of the New York State Assembly and Senate and their staffers regarding the proposed Rights Act Initiating Security and Equality for Children (RAISE Children) bill (S.4555/A.4880). 

“BLS students in the LGBTQ Clinic represent parents seeking adoptions to protect their children,” Hazeldean said. “So, we know that change is needed to make the process less burdensome for everyone. Educating legislators about the needs of LGBTQ+ parents and their children is an important part of clinic students’ work for LGBTQ+ equality.” The students worked with two New York State lawmakers who cosponsored the bill, Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) and Assembly Member Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas (D-Queens), as well as advocates such as Meg York, director of LGBTQ+ Family Law and Policy and Senior Policy Counsel at Family Equality, a national nonprofit advocating for LGBTQ families. The law’s sponsors hope to get the law passed sometime this year.  

“This bill would create a streamlined adoption process for people who form their families through assisted reproduction, and it’s also going to make it clear that LGBTQ families are valued just as much as every other family,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a legislative briefing, adding that in the current political environment, “courts seem less likely to recognize family diversity, and assistive reproductive is under attack by conservative jurists, so procedures like confirmatory adoption provide much needed legal security to all families.” 

Previous clinic students helped draft the bill, which would modernize New York’s parentage laws to better protect children with LGBTQ+ parents and other nontraditional families. During the briefings this spring semester, the students discussed why legislative change is needed to protect New York children who either have more than two parents, were conceived using assisted reproduction, or are being raised by parents who are not legally recognized.  

Currently, parents who consent to assisted reproduction, such as through a sperm or egg donor, are legal parents under New York law. Many of these parents also want to legally adopt the children to provide greater security, but current state law requires them to go through a series of legal hoops to do so.  

Confirmatory Adoption 

In the briefing, Murphy explained that the RAISE Children legislation would allow New York to join the eight states including New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, California, Colorado, and Virginia that have what is called a “confirmatory adoption” process.  

“They have already created a streamlined adoption process that allows parents who already have a baby through assisted reproduction to get an adoption order that says they are both the child’s parents without having to go through invasive and burdensome home studies, criminal background checks and court hearings,” Murphy said. “Additionally, the RAISE Children bill also makes it clear that a child can have more than two legal parents in New York, which allows for multiparent adoption.” 

This multiparent facet of the bill also goes beyond assisting solely LGBTQ+ couples. For example, if a parent divorces and remarries and a stepparent becomes a functional parent, the child can have three parents, without anyone having to give up parental rights.  

“The bill also updates presumptions of parentage, ensuring that married parents who have a child together will both be recognized as legal parents of that child and that presumptions of parentage don’t have to depend on their marriage,” Murphy said. “This is important in case protections for LGBTQ-plus families are ever rolled back.” 

Updated Language 
 
Another important facet of RAISE Children was explained by Barich in the briefing and pertains to outdated language in current state law that would be replaced if the bill becomes law.  

“This bill seeks to replace outdated and discriminatory terminology with clear, inclusive, and equitable language, ensuring that every child and family is afforded equal protection under the law,” Barich said. “For example, New York’s domestic relations law, Section 24, says that a child whose parents are married is the ‘legitimate’ child of both parents. Calling people ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’ is antiquated and stigmatizing.” 

Other language changes include changing references to “his” and “her” when referring to parental responsibilities and replacing those with terms like “they,” to be “inclusive of all parents, including nonbinary and gender-diverse individuals,” Barich said.  

Another critical revision in the bill expands the definition of who may adopt so that it is extended to multiparent families, and is not restricted to two “intimate partners,” Barich said. “Families formed through assisted reproduction, same-sex partnerships and multiparenting structures often face societal challenges and stigma,” Barich said. “When the law explicitly recognizes and validates these families, it affirms their legitimacy and stability, reducing stress and promoting a sense of security.”  

Judicial Efficiency 

In her portion of the briefing, Jones discussed the judicial efficiency that RAISE Children would afford the court system. “Confirmatory adoptions bypass the need for hearings, home studies, and the other lengthy and expensive processes that eat up judicial resources by allowing parents who already have parentage rights to adopt their own children,” Jones said. Expanding the presumption of parentage to include multiparent families and households can similarly safeguard stability for children.  

“We do not want children to ever have to face obstacles in seeing their own parents or to feel that their relationship with a parent is at risk because it is not recognized by the law,” Jones said. “The RAISE Children bill is a means for New York’s law and court system to become a protector of the parent-child relationship as opposed to our current legal framework which can pose risks for children in multiparent families.”  

Takeaways for Students 

Barich, who joined the clinic in the spring 2025 semester, said that since the first briefing in February, the clinic team continued to meet with lawmakers, and their teams to build a coalition of support for the bill.  

“Securing co-sponsors requires persistence, strategic advocacy, and the ability to navigate political dynamics, as not every legislator is immediately receptive or knowledgeable,” Barich said. “However, the process is deeply fulfilling, as each conversation brings the bill closer to reality, strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and fostering meaningful legislative change.” 

Murphy, who joined the clinic this spring, ultimately plans to go into corporate law as a transactional attorney. They have a current summer associate position. 

“But as a nonbinary person, it is important to me to be able fight for the rights of trans and other queer people," Murphy said. “LGBT advocacy policy work as a pro bono project is something I can see myself doing in the future.” 

 As for the clinic’s current work, it’s been satisfying. “We’ve had good feedback from the legislative staff members who we’ve reached out to and who said this would be something their office is interested in,” they said.  

Jones added that the team focused initially on speaking to the more progressive members of the assembly and their teams. “We really want to make sure we start building the relationship with those offices and ensure that they feel comfortable with the legislation and hopefully sign on as co-sponsors,” said Jones, who joined the clinic in fall 2024. The team’s next obstacle will be to try to get legislators assigned to specific committees to pass the bill. In the state Assembly, it’s the Judiciary Committee and in the state Senate, it is the Children and Families Committee. 
 
Working on legislation is not new to Jones, who, prior to attending Brooklyn Law, worked in the Delaware General Assembly for Representative Kendra Johnson. “It’s really cool for me to do this work in a clinic, from an advocacy point of view, because I was on the other side,” Jones said. She has a grasp of how politics can play a role in how lawmakers perceive bills, especially during polarizing times such as this when vulnerable groups, including the LGBTQ community, feel under attack.  

“The best thing we can do in those instances is just speak to the facts of the legislation,” Jones said. “This bill protects families, protects children, and creates more safeguards for the legal relationship between a parent and their child, no matter what that parent’s identity is, no matter whether the child already has two legal parents and this is their third legal parent. This creates more safeguards.” 

The clinic work does not directly align with Barich’s plans to pursue transactional law at Cleary Gottlieb, but it “does reinforce my commitment to advocacy,” he said. “This experience has shown me the impact of legislative efforts and the importance of pro bono work, which I plan to continue supporting throughout my career. It has also helped me develop skills in coalition-building and strategic communication that will be valuable in any legal setting.” 

Jones, who said being able to do something to help the LGBTQ community has been the most rewarding part of the work, is taking a summer associate position at Kelley Drye & Warren and hopes to end up in litigation. “Wherever I end up, I just want to make sure that I can still have advocacy as part of something that I do,” she said.  

More information on the RAISE Children bill, and the RAISE Children Coalition is available here.