Elizabeth Schwartz has been practicing law since 1997. She is the author of Before I Do: A Legal Guide to Marriage, Gay & Otherwise (The New Press, 2016). For 6 years Elizabeth was co-chair of the national board of SAGE (Advocacy & Services for LGBT Elders) where she has served in partnership with the CEO and executive team, served on the Nominating & Governance and Development committees, participated in the negotiation of the CEO's contract and helped oversee a $15m P&L. While her Miami-based law firm works all clients in matters of family law, estate planning and probate, Elizabeth has made a name for herself representing the LGBTQ community, with a focus on family formation (adoption, insemination, surrogacy). Elizabeth served as counsel on a victorious case challenging Florida's marriage ban brought by the National Center for Lesbian Rights on behalf of 6 same-sex couples seeking the right to marry. She also served as counsel in several cases that helped overturn Florida's bigoted 1977 ban forbidding gays and lesbians from adopting children, and has been on the forefront of providing crucial legal protections for LGBTQ families including through marital dissolution. Elizabeth secured the first same-sex divorce in Florida.Elizabeth is a Board Certified Adoption Lawyer. She is a fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, serving as an adoption intermediary helping make forever families of all kinds. Also a family mediator, she treats the law as a therapeutic profession, facilitating relationship dissolution with minimal investment of emotional and financial resources. Elizabeth is a member of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights as well as its National Leadership Council. She is Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. A native of Miami Beach, Elizabeth received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993, and received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Miami in 1997. A lefty and a Scorpio, she lives with her wife, writer Lydia Martin, and their dog Gracie Kenisha de la Caridad, in downtown Miami's urban core.