Kara Ingelhart was going to be a scientist. She was at Indiana University, home of the famed Kinsey Institute. She would get her Ph.D. in gender studies. "And I was like, huh, the law could move faster than science at advancing things, maybe? I don't know if that's true anymore, but I thought that at the time," Ingelhart remembered.
She took the LSAT spontaneously, scored well and decided on University of Chicago's law school for its intellectual rigor. For a "conservative law school, she found the school invested strongly in LGBTQ issues. "I've made the best friends of my life, both in the queer community and not. I have close friends who are libertarians," said Ingelhart, who will graduate this year. Even if law school sometimes felt daunting, she said her passion and the supportive environment carried her through.
As president of OutLaw, the law school's organization for LGBTQ students, Ingelhart helped strengthen queer visibility. She remembered attending a presentation about the history of the LGBTQ movement that she found so-so, while her less-savvy peers were fascinated. "What you don't realize going to law school, coming from the background I come from, is that a lot of people just don't know the issues. Having really basic programming was important," she said.
Ingelhart said she feels sharing an identity with a client improves client relations. "It's all about empathy, not just sympathy," she said. "I'm not going to have the same life experiences as my clients, I just won't, but to relate in some way to people who have gone through similar hardship because of a similar identity—it just creates a quick bond and a quick trust. I think it's like that across all civil rights movements I've observed. You're much more willing to talk about your problems due to how your identity is perceived, because you don't have the tension of someone going, 'You're just imagining that' or 'Maybe if you just did this.'"
After stints working at Lambda Legal and the National LGBTQ Task Force, Ingelhart became fascinated with HIV criminalization and the expungement process. Initially, she said, "I had no interest in criminalization because I didn't see it as intersecting, because I had a different high-level understanding of LGBTQ issues coming from science. So I learned about HIV criminalization and about HIV from the work I did at the Kinsey institute, and I was like, 'should we be striking these laws down? Are they doing good?'
"Really, all it does is disincentivize testing and disincentivize disclosure." Ingelhart said. "When you learn, 'Oh, having HIV right now—at this time of scientific development—is not what it used to be. People live equally full and long lives,' the criminalization laws are absolutely fascinating and devastating."
Juveniles, in particular, seem vulnerable to added criminalization. "Plea bargains work particularly interestingly for this community," Ingelhart explained. "You can get marked with a sex offense status through your community supervision, just because you identify. Some judges think, at worst, they can convert you, and at best think well, you need extra care. But what that means is that you might end up at a community support meeting with violent sex offenders."
Even minor details might have significance for LGBTQ individuals in the system. While a plea bargain might look like an attractive option, Ingelhart said pleading to certain things means you can't change your name for ten years. "So if you're trans and if your attorney doesn't understand that, you're stuck," she pointed out. "The incentive comes from 'we don't want criminals changing their names and running away.' But you can still change your name if you get married. This is crazy."
While issues are different by jurisdiction, Ingelhart said she wants to make the legal profession aware of LGBTQ-specific concerns, perhaps through training. "That's a good place to start, to create a best practices model," she said. "And all lawyers need to go continuing legal education, so if you can make it sound interesting, it's a good way to market the issue."
Now, through a two-year fellowship with the Skadden Foundation, Ingelhart hopes to help youth who have been caught in the system get their records expunged. She's still in early stages, reaching out to both professionals and potential clients, and isn't quite sure what shape her project will take. "There are a lot of good expungement clinics, but I don't think it's taken advantage of us as much as it could be. I'd like to do a lot of public education. I'd like to develop, if I can, advisory boards for my issue, because I don't have the lived experience and there can be a lot of well-meaning people who can make the situation worse."
She's excited—she'll be working in Lambda Legal's Midwest Regional office as a staff attorney while she completes her project—but admitted, "This kind of on-the-ground stuff is something I've never done." She's reaching out to other Skadden fellows for support, and has nothing but praise for connection she's made with past and current fellows.
Ingelhart's project seems to be part of a growing trend in LGBTQ legal services. As she described it, "we're moving away from the sexy topics like marriage and family to these topics about sex. Sometimes your clients aren't perfect families. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't deserve help for any action that they've ever taken."
