Announcing Bill Singer as Of Counsel!

In 2018, I am honored and delighted to welcome Bill Singer as Of Counsel to my law firm Diana Adams Law & Mediation, PLLC. Bill is nothing short of a legend and my personal hero; I am humbled and thrilled for him to join our firm. In Bill’s 47 years of law practice, he has been an international leader in support of same-sex couples, LGBT family law, and support of families of all types. 

Bill is quite arguably THE founder of our field of LGBT family law, and a catalyst for the international movement for LGBT rights to marry, parent, and form families of our choosing. In addition to being a legal legend, Bill is my personal hero and mentor. Since Bill started law practice in 1971, he has been consistently outspoken and innovative in pushing for the legal rights of the marginalized, at the radical fringe and pushing against convention even in progressive legal communities. Moreover, he is obviously a lawyer with true passion and heart; even after 47 years of difficult and slow fights against the current, Bill still has a sparkle and often a tear in his eye when talking about his clients, his community of advocate attorneys in the trenches, and his dedication to this work. That persevering and unflinching compassion, integrity, and dedication to justice is truly awe-inspiring to me. This is the path to which I aspire.

In Bill’s early years of law practice in the 1970s, Bill was outspoken about injustice for gay men during the AIDS crisis and was coined “the angel of death” because of his countless bedside visits to gay men dying of the ravages of AIDS to provide them with Wills and estate planning that would protect their beloved partners who had no legal relationship with them.

Bill was integral to the founding of the National LGBT Bar Association in the mid 1980s, at first a small group of LGBT attorneys united to provide resources to the gay and lesbian community at the height of the AIDS crisis, and now a large and powerful partner of the American Bar Association with a major annual conference, Lavender Law. Bill has served as the General Counsel for the National LGBT Bar Association since its founding in the 1980s. In 2013, the National LGBT Bar Association named Bill as the inaugural winner of the “Leading Practitioner Award”, an award Bill has certainly earned.

Bill was the founder of the LGBT Family Law Institute (FLI), an organization for attorneys who specialize in LGBT family law to share resources and strategy, at first throughout the United States, and now worldwide. Bill served as Director from 2009-2016, during which time I got to know Bill when I was one of the attorneys representing New York State. Bill now serves as International Director of FLI, coordinating the international movement of lawyers, with FLI chapters in the USA, Europe, UK/Ireland, Latin America, Canada, Australia. I am honored to serve as Director of the European chapter of FLI, coordinating LGBT family law leaders across Europe. I’ll be bringing many of them together for their first meeting this April in Frankfurt, with Bill by my side.

Bill has been in the private practice of law in Somerset County, New Jersey for 47 years with Singer & Fedun, LLC. Now in his role as Of Counsel attorney to my firm, Bill will also handle cases in New York with our collaboration and input on New York law. We’re grateful to offer this service to our clients and to have the opportunity to collaborate closely Bill, a lawyer whose impact, dedication, and warmth serve as a powerful model of the very best of our profession.

To read more about Bill’s illustrious history, his awards and publications, you’ll find him now among our attorney profiles.

With a humbled heart and tears in my eyes,

Diana