ETTELBRICK, PAULA LOUISE
Paula Louise Ettelbrick is a lawyer and activist for
lesbian and gay rights, and a lifelong advocate of
public service. She was the first staff attorney for
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and
served as its legal director from 1988 to 1993.
Ettelbrick was born October 2, 1955, on a
U.S. Army base in Stuttgart, Germany. Growing
up in a devout Catholic family, she was taught by
her parents that each person has an obligation to
society and to the greater world, and that all
people should be treated equally. Ettelbrick’s
convictions initially led her to social work after
she had graduated from Northern Illinois Uni-
versity in 1978 with a bachelor of arts degree in
history. She held several social services posi-
tions, working primarily for the women’s shelter
at the Harbor Light Center, in Boston, which
assists alcoholic and homeless adults. Through
her work, in which she sought public benefits,
housing, and employment for low- and no-
income women, Ettelbrick came to believe that
the system doesn’t work for the underrepre-
sented—namely, the poor.
With an interest in labor and EMPLOYMENT
LAW, Ettelbrick enrolled in law school at Wayne
State University, in Detroit,Michigan, where she
wrote for the Wayne Law Review and clerked for
several legal employers, including the United
Auto Workers (UAW) Union. Working for the
UAW, Ettelbrick was exposed to a variety of
LABOR LAW and public policy issues, and helped
draft a statement from the union’s vice president
to the U.S. Congress on why the EQUAL RIGHTS
AMENDMENT should be reintroduced to Con-
gress—a meaningful assignment in light of her
growing interest in feminist and lesbian issues.
In 1984, she graduated cum laude and took an
associate position doing commercial litigation at
Miller, Canfield, Paddock, and Stone, a large law
firm in Detroit.
Two years later, in keeping with her original
desire to do public interest work, she left the law
firm and joined the Lambda Legal Defense and
Education Fund, an organization founded in
New York City, in 1973, that advocates gay and
lesbian CIVIL RIGHTS.
Hoping to challenge legal assumptions
about gay and lesbian people, Ettelbrick litigated
a variety of cases, many related to the heighten-
ing legal crisis accompanying AIDS. Within a
year, Lambda hired a second staff attorney to do
AIDS work, and Ettelbrick was freed up to
develop what Lambda called its Sexual Orienta-
tion Docket, working with cases involving fami-
lies, employment, and the military. In 1988, with
a staff of seven, she was appointed Lambda’s
legal director. Soon after, under Ettelbrick’s
guidance and vision, Lambda opened an office
in Los Angeles and created a network of four
hundred cooperating attorneys around the
United States.
After seven years of high-intensity work at
Lambda, Ettelbrick was ready for a change, and
in March 1993, she left the organization. Shortly
thereafter, the National Center for Lesbian
Rights hired her as its director of public policy,
where she continued her work on family issues.
One of her many accomplishments in this posi-
tion was helping to draft a new employment dis-
crimination bill introduced in Congress to add
sexual orientation to the list of prohibited cate-
gories under employment and housing laws. She
