After coming to terms with her transgender status, Wendy Moretz spent more than a year representing herself in a custody battle over her son during a divorce.
Legal services would have helped her tremendously, the 37-year-old Baltimore County resident said.
"If I had the services back when I first transitioned and [had] known where to go to find a lawyer that would have been willing to really fight for me, that would have helped tremendously," Moretz said.
A group of Maryland lawyers and advocates is raising funds for the FreeState Law Project, an effort to start a law clinic that would provide direct legal services to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Marylanders.
The clinic would be the first in the state and one of a few in the nation, its organizers said.
"We found that there were very few pro bono legal services programs in the entire country," said Lisa Kershner, a Bethesda attorney who, with Baltimore attorney Nevett Steele, is heading the effort.
Kershner said national groups and clinics in Baltimore deal with particular issues, such as gay and lesbian policy issues or AIDS/HIV cases, but that the only broad-based direct legal services center she has come across is in Philadelphia.
The Maryland group hopes to collect $250,000 to enable its center to open in September. It has raised about $30,000 and is forming an advisory board to decide issues such as whether to incorporate as a nonprofit and whether the group would be based in its own space or partner with another organization.
The group is now operating out of the Public Justice Center in Baltimore, which serves as its fiscal agent.
Organizers say there is a need for a broad range of legal services tailored to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people because of the unique legal needs of people who can't legally marry.
"The law is different when applied to them, so that makes even routine types of legal problems or questions more complicated," Kershner said.
"There's a tremendous number of folks who have problems," Steele said. "Partners who are breaking up, and there is no law like there is with heterosexual partners."
Activists are preparing to fight for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the Maryland legislature. Last year, the state's highest court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage.
Steele said the group hopes to lobby lawmakers in support of same-sex marriage rights.
