Thomas Ude, Jr., former senior staff attorney and counsel for Lambda Legal, will assume the legal and public-policy director position at Mazzoni Center, effective Sept. 30.
The position was previously held by David M. Rosenblum, who died suddenly in May of a heart attack. He had been in the position for three years.
Ude, 51, brings more than 20 years of high-level advocacy and litigating experience to Mazzoni Center’s legal-services department — the only program that provides direct legal assistance to low-income LGBT individuals in Pennsylvania, with a wide range of areas including discrimination law, family law, advanced planning, insurance matters and transgender-specific legal issues.
“I am excited to be joining the staff of Mazzoni Center,” Ude said. “I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to its strong and vibrant history of identifying and addressing the needs of LGBT people. I am humbled to be succeeding David Rosenblum, whose experience, intellect and passion continue to inspire many of us, and look forward to continuing the important work of advancing equality for all people who are LGBT or living with HIV.”
Nurit Shein, Mazzoni Center CEO, said the organization is fortunate to have someone with Ude’s expertise join the legal team.
“We are delighted to welcome an attorney of Thomas Ude’s caliber and reputation as the new head of our legal program. His dedication to LGBT equality and his shared passion for our mission will help transform the lives of many in the Philadelphia region,” Shein said.
During his time at Lambda Legal, Ude focused on government misconduct and discrimination, employment discrimination, recognition of same-sex relationships and parent-child relationships, transgender rights and the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. Lambda is the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of civil rights for the LGBT community and for those living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public-policy work.
Ude worked on several significant court cases while at Lambda including Taylor v. Rice, Lambda Legal’s challenge to the State Department’s ban against hiring anyone with HIV as a Foreign Service Officer. Also during his tenure, Lambda Legal filed amicus briefs in cases such as Patino v. Birken Manufacturing Co., backing Connecticut’s law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and Cradle of Liberty Council, BSA v. City of Philadelphia, arguing that Philadelphia’s decision to end its subsidy of the Scouting Council’s antigay discrimination was lawful and justified.
Ude also handled many different cases in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He served as corporation counsel for the city of New Haven, Conn., for 10 years before working at Lambda. He also has more than 10 years of trial-attorney experience at the appellate, state and federal levels, including several cases before the Connecticut Supreme Court.
In addition to trying cases at Lambda, Ude served on the Multicultural Programming Committee, which sought to make legal services more available to people of all races and income levels. He also worked with Connecticut state legislative leaders during the state’s fight for marriage equality, and was a strong advocate in the effort to drop the state’s Medicaid exclusion of benefits to transgender people.
Ude was drawn to LGBT civil rights by both his personal stake in marriage equality and the discrimination he witnessed toward to his friends and people he knew in the community.
“As a gay man myself, I wanted to contribute what I could to the effort to increase the level of respect our community received across society,” Ude said.
The attorney had become familiar with the Mazzoni Center over the years through working with predecessor Rosenblum on several cases, most recently the Boy Scouts case. He said he was always impressed by the center’s ability to provide a broad range of services to a significant number of people.
He saw an opportunity in taking the director position at Mazzoni to empower a specific demographic within the LGBT community.
“The idea of serving low-income members of the community who would not otherwise receive our services was very appealing. And to have an impact on the lives of this great LGBT community here in Philadelphia will be a very rewarding opportunity,” Ude said.
He credits Rosenblum for his ability to influence public policy with entities such as Philadelphia City Council in ways that were new for Mazzoni at the time. Ude said he is excited to continue to expand those opportunities and is looking forward to working with Barrett Marshall, Mazzoni staff attorney, to grow those resources.
Ude will be implementing a new case-management software system that will enable the legal department to collect and analyze a greater amount of data. This will allow the team members to determine if their resources are being utilized efficiently and help them maximize their allocation.
On the legal challenges that lay ahead for the Pennsylvania LGBT community, Ude hopes to tackle the absence of explicit language banning discrimination of LGBT in the state law books.
“Members of the LGBT community need access to full rights under local law,” Ude said.
Educating government officials and employers of their obligations to the LGBT community under the current law is also a top priority, he said.
Ude was born and raised in Connecticut and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1989, graduating cum laude.
Until recently, Ude served on the boards of directors of Love Makes a Family, Connecticut’s marriage-equality organization (2007-2009), and the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (2001-2010). He has also been a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association since 2007.