Brian Chase
Staff Attorney
CONTACT: Western Regional Office, 213-382-7600
Brian Chase is a Staff Attorney in the Western Regional office of Lambda Legal, the largest and oldest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV.
Since joining Lambda Legal in 2002, Chase has been involved in a number of cases on behalf of lesbian and gay couples, LGBTQ youth and people with HIV. Chase is the lead appellate attorney for Megan Donovan and Joey Ramelli, who were awarded $300,000 by a jury in San Diego after enduring years of harassment at their high school. Chase successfully represented parents in Oklahoma in Lambda Legal's challenge to that state's anti-adoption law, which threatened to invalidate adoptions by same-sex couples that moved to Oklahoma from other states. Chase currently represents employees of the city of New Orleans, who are defending the city's domestic partner benefits from a lawsuit brought by an antigay legal organization.
Chase was the lead drafter of SB 559, which amended the California Revenue and Taxation Code to provide tax relief to surviving partners whose property taxes were unfairly increased simply because they inherited real estate from a deceased registered domestic partner. Chase was also counsel in Strong v. Board of Equalization, in which the California Court of Appeals recognized the power of the California Legislature to provide tax equality between registered domestic partners and married spouses. In addition, Chase was a member of the legal team that secured Lambda Legal's landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down Texas' "Homosexual Conduct" law and every remaining sodomy law in the nation.
Before joining Lambda Legal, Chase was an associate with King, LeBlanc & Bland, a New Orleans firm, where he specialized in federal litigation. Previously, Chase was an associate with the South Florida office of Barrett, Gravante, Carpinello & Stern (n/k/a Boies, Schiller & Flexner). Before law school, Chase worked for two years at the Italian Home for Children in Boston, where he provided counseling for physically and sexually abused children.
Chase was the founder of the New Orleans Homeless Youth Drop-In Center Legal Clinic and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Drop-In Center, which once provided an array of critical services for runaway kids living on the streets in New Orleans. Soon after graduating from law school, Chase served as pro bono counsel for a women's health clinic whose landlord had broken its lease due to pressure from anti-choice protestors. Chase has served as the Bulletin Editor of the Independent Gay Forum, which was created by a group of conservative, moderate and libertarian authors who support a vision for independent perspectives on LGBT-related issues.
Chase received his J.D. with honors from Tulane University, where he was the Chief Justice of the Tulane Moot Court and received American Jurisprudence Awards in Criminal Law and Successions. While at Tulane, Chase served as the President of the Committee for Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues. He received his undergraduate degree in Religion from Wake Forest University. Chase currently teaches as an adjunct lecturer in Law at the University of Southern California.
