Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Gains Strength in Fight For Equality in the Midwest: Adds two Attorneys to Midwestern Regional Office

(Chicago, Sept. 15, 2002) Lambda Legal’s Midwestern Regional office continues to grow in its tenth year with the appointment of Rudy Estrada to Lambda Legal’s Foster Care Initiative and the appointment of Camilla B. Taylor as the newest staff attorney to the midwestern region. The two bring years of knowledge and experience to the campaign for the rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and people with HIV or AIDS in the midwestern states. Estrada and Taylor join Lambda senior counsel Patricia Logue and senior staff attorney Heather Sawyer, who are also based in Lambda Legal’s Midwestern Regional Office in Chicago.

“I have dedicated my legal career to fighting for the legal rights of the poor and disenfranchised, including children. I look forward to bringing this fight to the LGBT community as a Lambda Legal Attorney working on LGBT youth and foster care issues,” states Rudy Estrada. For over six years, Estrada has been a full-time court appointed attorney and guardian ad litem for children in foster care including abused, neglected, and dependent wards of the state. As a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, he represented many children in abuse and neglect proceedings. Most recently, he served as assistant public guardian at the Cook County Office of the Public Guardian. Estrada has also done extensive trainings and presentations on child protection in Wisconsin. He received both his B.A. and his J.D. from University of Wisconsin.

For the past three and a half years, Camilla B. Taylor worked as an appellate public defender at the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. Prior to this, she was a litigation associate at Shearman & Sterling, where she represented a Texas death row inmate and a person with AIDS who was not receiving AIDS-related medical care in prison. “My position at Lambda Legal provides me with the opportunity to focus on the issues surrounding HIV and AIDS that I care so deeply about,” stated Taylor. Taylor received her B.A. from Yale College and her J.D. from Columbia Law School where she was a member of the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems.

“The addition of these two fine attorneys to our staff will contribute dramatically to our struggles on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV and AIDS community,” stated Mona Noriega, Regional Director of Lambda Legal’s Midwestern Region. “Rudy and Camilla are invaluable additions to the Lambda Legal Team,” Noriega added.

Contact: Mona Noriega, 312/663-4413 ext. 31