Pammela Quinn '00 and Matthew Stowe '01
Pammela Quinn '00 and Matthew Stowe '01: DLJ colleagues Team-teach Sexual Orientation Seminar
When I see people fighting for my cause throwing out passion before legal argument, I feel like that's sort of short-changing the kind of advocacy we are entitled to.
- Matthew Stowe
Although Matthew Stowe ’01 is a securities litigator, much of his active pro bono practice is devoted to cases affecting gays and lesbians. At the moment, he and colleagues in the Boston office of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr are representing 12 former members of the military who were discharged under the federal statute know as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” after serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and elsewhere. The case challenges the constitutionality of the statute and seeks reinstatement of the plaintiffs to the military.
“Never before has ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ seemed more susceptible to a successful constitutional challenge than it is right now,” says Stowe. “The 2003 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas overturned Bowers v. Hardwick and held that states can’t criminalize homosexual conduct, undermining the legal analysis of prior decisions upholding the statute.”
Taking part in such cases was a key reason behind his decision to become a lawyer, Stowe says. “I’m gay, and I had grown up accustomed to the idea that there wasn’t really a place in the world for openly gay people. After I came out and started to educate myself on the law and everything else, I was bothered by what I discovered, such as it being perfectly legal to state on a pink slip that you are firing someone because they’re gay. As I started thinking about law school, too, more cases relating to gays and lesbians were reaching the front page. The world was changing, and I thought I wanted to a part of it.”
Stowe has returned to Duke Law School to share his expertise, currently co-teaching a seminar entitled “Sexual Orientation and the Law” with former Duke Law Journal colleague Pammela Quinn ’00; both also clerked for Fourth Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer following law school. Quinn, who spent a year at the Justice Department as a Bristow Fellow in the Solicitor General’s Office and another three in the appellate division of O’Melveny & Myers’ Washington, D.C., office, has extensive experience with issues of gender theory and sex discrimination which, she points out, figure integrally in case law related to sexual orientation.
Quinn and Stowe agree that there’s a growing demand for attorneys who can knowledgeably take on sexual orientation cases.
“There are a lot of legislative and legal battles going on,” says Quinn. “People graduating from law school with an interest in the subject can easily become involved in pro bono cases, especially military and marriage cases.”
Both Stowe and Quinn emphasize that the legal demand exists on both sides of the gay-rights debate, and all perspectives are welcome and addressed in class. “The Family Research Council needs attorneys who can argue that state constitutional restrictions pass federal muster, and the government needs lawyers who can argue in support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” says Stowe.
“Honesty, rigorous judicial thinking, and meritorious arguments are the most important things. When I see people fighting for my cause throwing out passion before legal argument, I feel like that’s sort of short-changing the kind of advocacy we are entitled to.” Whatever a student’s viewpoint, Stowe promises the discussion will have practical currency.
“A lot of the cases you study in law school relate to issues that are long-decided and are not going to be re-litigated. The average case does not involve these kinds of exciting issues.”