Contributor

Scott Schoettes

HIV advocate and activist

Scott Schoettes is the HIV Project Director for Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and people with HIV.



Shortly after being diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1999, Schoettes left a decade-long career in the theater and began his legal studies at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. While in law school, Schoettes was an associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, served as co-chair of Outlaw (the LGBT student group at Georgetown Law), completed a fellowship with the Human Rights Campaign, and volunteered as a counselor in the wills clinic at Whitman-Walker. After graduating magna cum laude in 2002, he clerked for the Honorable J. Frederick Motz in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.



Prior to joining Lambda Legal in October 2007, Schoettes spent four years litigating a wide variety of matters from the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins -- primarily working on class actions, employment discrimination, and political asylum cases. His pro bono work during that time continued to address matters involving the intersection of sexual orientation and the law. In his position at Lambda Legal, Schoettes focuses on cases and issues involving and affecting individuals with HIV.