Richard Saenz (he/him) is Senior Counsel and the Criminal Justice and Police Misconduct Strategist at Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV. He is the project manager and co-author of Protected & Served? 2022, Lambda Legal’s groundbreaking community survey on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV with the criminal legal system.

Currently, Richard is lead counsel in Tucker et al. v. Utah Department of Corrections, et al., a challenge to the state of Utah’s categorical ban on medically necessary care for incarcerated people with gender dysphoria in Utah’s prisons and discriminatory treatment because of their disability of gender dysphoria. As lead counsel in Wagoner v. Winkelman, he secured a federal district court win, after a five-day trial, finding that gender-affirming surgery is medically necessary treatment for Ms. Wagoner’s gender dysphoria and that DOC had acted with deliberate indifference to her gender dysphoria in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Richard was counsel in Hicklin v. Precythe, a successful challenge to Missouri’s DOC’s “freeze frame” policy denying appropriate health care to transgender people in its custody, in one of the first court decisions to rule specifically that “freeze-frame” policies are unconstitutional as they violate the Eighth Amendment. The court ordered that Ms. Hicklin have access to hormone therapy, permanent body hair removal, and access to gender-affirming canteen items.

And in litigation concerning the rights of people living with HIV: Richard was lead counsel in Latasha Monroe, Administratrix of the Estate of Honesty Bishop. on behalf of the Estate of Honesty Bishop, a formerly incarcerated transgender woman living with HIV, who was put in solitary confinement for over six years due to an unconstitutional and discriminatory policy against people living with HIV. The settlement included changes to the Missouri DOC policy, training, and monetary compensation. In John Doe v. Delaware County, et al., concerning the unlawful denial of participation in a prison’s work program because of Mr. Doe’s HIV status and the unlawful disclosure of his HIV-positive status, the parties’ settlement provides for policy changes. And, in Dorn v. Michigan Department of Corrections the parties’ settlement included substantive changes to the MDOC’s policy directive concerning people living with HIV.

At the U. S. Supreme Court, he co-authored an amicus brief in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Corlett concerning the constitutionality of New York’s licensing for concealed carry permits. The brief details the elevated risk of harm from firearms towards LGBTQ+ people including hate violence and suicide. He co-authored an amicus brief in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson that highlights the unique harms of the unconstitutional criminalization of homelessness for marginalized youth. And, in Rhines v. Young, a capital case from South Dakota, he-co-authored an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to allow Mr. Rhines to present evidence that anti-gay bias was a factor in some jurors’ decisions to sentence him to death.

Richard’s legislative work includes coalition work on New York State’s Gender Identity Respect, Dignity, and Safety Act and Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trades. He is part of the legal team in Chandler v. CDCR defending California’s SB 132, The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, on behalf of intervenors. Richard is on the legal team in Immigration Equality v. DHS, a challenge that stopped the Trump’s death-to-asylum rule from ever going into effect during the first Trump administration. And, in 2016, he served as a panelist at the White House LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Briefing.

His work has been featured in the Washington Post, NBC News, USA Today, Newsweek, and The Advocate. He is the author of “A Crisis Behind Bars: Legal Issues Impacting Transgender People in Prisons” the featured article for the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Magazine, Winter 2023. He is a frequent speaker on the impact of the criminal legal system on LGBTQ+ people including at national conferences and at law schools across the country. And has been a guest on American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section’s podcast, JustPod and the LGBT Bar of New York’s podcast to discuss, “Can the criminal legal system protect LGBTQ+ people?”

In 2025, Richard was awarded the Fordham Law Alumni Associations Rising Star Award. In 2024, he was selected as a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School. The program recognizes exemplary lawyers who have distinguished themselves in public interest work and who can advise students who are considering similar career paths. Additionally in 2024, he received Fordham Law School’s Public Interest Resource Center’s Lefkowitz Award recognizing his contributions to public service. He is the recipient of the LGBT Bar Association of New York’s 2022 Community Excellence Award. And, he has been named a Hispanic National Bar Association’s Top Lawyers Under 40 and a National LGBTQ Bar Association’s Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.

Prior to re-joining Lambda Legal, where he previously was a Legal Help Desk Specialist, Richad established the LGBT/HIV Advocacy Project at Queens Legal Services—one of the first programs within a traditional legal services/aid organization to center the needs of low-income and poor LGBTQ+ people in the United States.

Richard received his Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law, where he was a Stein Scholar for Public Interest Law and Ethics. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown University.