In January of 1992, the Dallas Bar Association held a candle-light vigil at the Belo Mansion in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. It was the first year Dr. King’s birthday was recognized as a state holiday in Texas and the creation of the holiday had been greeted with mixed emotions in Dallas. Lee Taft, a personal injury attorney, organized the vigil as a visible show or solidarity with the ideals Dr. King embodied. At the time, Ed Ishmael was a young lawyer with Baker & McKenzie, LLP which officed across the street from the Belo. With the sun setting, Ishmael joined the small group of lawyers holding candles on the front steps of the mansion as downtown Dallas hustled on its way home for the evening. It was a relatively small event, as vigils go, no more than 15 people attending, but before the evening ended, Taft asked Ishmael to lunch. It was at that lunch, again at the Belo, that the topic of a gay and lesbian bar association was first discussed. Both men thought it was a great idea and long overdue.
At that time, several of the gay and lesbian attorneys in Dallas were infrequently meeting in private homes as part of a group called The Stonewall Legal Society. The idea was to formalize the group's existence and eventually gain a voice in the legal community for issues affecting gay, Lesbian, bisexual and transgendered attorneys and their clients. As Taft recalls, “It was our intention to see that the phrase ‘gay and lesbian’ became a part of the vernacular at the DBA.” Ishmael and Taft decided that their best option was to create the Gay and Lesbian Study Group. As a study group, they could meet at the Belo Mansion and have the groups’ name appear in the monthly announcements of the Bar Association’s “Headnotes.” “I still remember the pride I felt when I opened the Headnotes that first month and saw us listed in the calendar along with the Banking Section and the Litigation Section," Ishmael remembers. "I wondered if there would be a backlash, but we only heard of a few complaints." The first meeting packed the room at the Belo with over 20 attendees and the Gay and Lesbian Study Group was born.
The Study Group continued in existence through 1999. In 1999, Rob Wiley graduated from law school in New Orleans and moved to Dallas. Wiley believed that Dallas ought to have a full fledged Gay and Lesbian Bar Association. Shortly after arriving in Dallas, Wiley incorporated the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Bar Association and served as its first president.
In 2001, the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Bar Association hosted the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association’s Lavender Law Conference. Andrew Tobias and Candice Gingrich served as keynote speakers. The conference was one of the NLGLA’s most successful. Texas’ own Phyllis Randolph Fry received an award for her work as a transgender legal activist.
The DGLBA continues to play an active role in the legal community of Dallas, Texas.
