Staff

Kenneth D. Upton, Jr. is Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in the South Central Regional Office of Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV.

With more than 20 years of trial and appellate experience in state and federal courts across the country, Ken is based in Dallas and supervises attorneys in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office in Chicago. He has served on the governing council of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identification Issues Section of the State Bar of Texas and, in 2008, was the recipient of that section’s Norman W. Black Award in recognition of his significant contributions to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and HIV legal issues.  

Recent cases in which Ken appears as counsel of record include Finstuen v. Crutcher (striking down Oklahoma's unconstitutional adoption invalidation law), Moreau v. Qwest Communications (testing the reach of Denver’s antidiscrimination ordinance for workplace harassment and retaliation based on sexual orientation), Lopez v. River Oaks (resulting in the first federal district court in the Fifth Circuit to recognize a Title VII claim on behalf of transgender woman denied employment), Ralph v. City of New Orleans (upholding the city’s domestic partner registry and health insurance coverage for same-sex partners of city employees), Adar v. Smith (requiring the Louisiana Department of Health to respect adoptions by same-sex couples in other states), Franke v. Parkstone Living Center (representing a 75-year-old minister evicted by an Arkansas assisted living facility because he has HIV) and Varnum v. Brien (Lambda Legal’s landmark Iowa Supreme Court marriage victory).