2026 Summer Party

Ricardo (he/him) joined GLAD Law as Executive Director in the summer of 2024 after serving on the front lines of state and national LGBTQ+ advocacy in Texas and Arizona. A first-generation immigrant from Mexico who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, Ricardo has amassed twenty years of nonprofit fundraising, advocacy, and leadership experience.

His experience includes roles at PENCIL, Summer Search, GLSEN, Stand for Children, and most recently, as CEO of Equality Texas. During his tenure as chair of the Phoenix, Arizona chapter of GLSEN, the organization became an instrumental coalition partner in overturning Arizona’s “no promo homo” law, which prohibited K-12 schools from including LGBTQ+ representation in their curriculum. In his time at Equality Texas, Ricardo ensured the organization was able to maximize its impact at a time of intense and sustained anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and under his leadership, increased staff capacity and supporter base.

Ricardo has an undergraduate degree from Stony Brook University and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from The New School in New York City. He was honored by the Obama Administration as an emerging LGBTQ Leader in 2012 and awarded the Stony Brook University’s 40 Under 40 award for his impact in Civil Service and Activism.

Jennifer L. Levi is the Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights and a nationally recognized expert on transgender legal issues. Levi is actively in the fight against President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders. In Talbott v. USA, she is litigating a ban on transgender people joining or serving in the military in his second presidency. Levi is also co-counsel in three lawsuits challenging an executive order that attempted to force transgender women in prison to be housed in men’s facilities. They led the legal fight against the first Trump administration’s military ban in both Doe v. Trump and Stockman v. Trump.  

Levi’s role is that of architect and advocate for state legislative and policy reform. Their work also involves challenging new legal issues or interpretations brought before the court. Levi has represented clients in cases challenging improper denials of medical care, including challenging state bans and restrictions on transgender health care, as well as improper placement of transgender people in prisons and jails. Other precedent-setting transgender rights cases Levi has worked on include: 

Rosa v. Park West Bank, a case brought on behalf of a transgender woman denied a bank loan under the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act that laid the foundation for the recent Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County; 

O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (2010), which established that medical care relating to gender transition qualifies for a medical tax deduction; and 

Doe v. Clenchy (2014), in which the first state high court ruled that a transgender girl must be fully integrated into her public elementary school as a girl, including having full and equal access to restrooms. 

Levi was co-counsel in two landmark marriage equality cases, winning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in Massachusetts (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 2003) and Connecticut (Kerrigan v. Department of Public Health, 2008), and has led a number of key family law cases establishing important protections for families headed by LGBTQ+ parents including Sinnott v. Peck and Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, both decided by the Vermont Supreme Court. 

Levi is a law professor at Western New England University and co-editor of Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy (2012). She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and a former law clerk to the Honorable Judge Michael Boudin at the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 

Chris Erchull (any pronouns) joined GLAD Law in 2019. He is actively engaged with policy work across New England, with a particular focus on advocating for transgender rights in New Hampshire, having helped to defeat numerous bills targeting trans youth in particular. Chris also works with New England families and schools to ensure that LGBTQ+ students are afforded equal educational opportunities. His litigation includes Pangborn v. Ascend, a lawsuit on behalf of a hospice care nurse who was denied healthcare by his employer because he is transgender, Bernier v. Turbocam, a lawsuit challenging a healthcare exclusion by a company that claims to have religious freedom to discriminate, and Doe v. Ladapo, a challenge to Florida’s ban on medical care for transgender adolescents which was tried in December 2023. Chris has co-authored numerous amicus briefs, including in Commonwealth v. Carter, which resulted in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that people may not be excluded from jury service based on sexual orientation.

Chris has been honored as one of the “40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40” by the National LGBT Bar Association. Chris graduated cum laude from New York University and magna cum laude from the Western New England University School of Law. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ariane D. Vuono of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and to the justices of the Massachusetts Superior Court. Chris is licensed to practice law in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.