Stonewall Legacy Project

Jerry Chasen (he/him) received his JD from NYU Law School and his LLM in Estate Planning from the University of Miami School of Law. He is the former principal of Miami-based Chasen & Associates PA, a groundbreaking LGBTQ+ estate planning law firm, and its predecessor, Crockett, Franklin and Chasen. In addition to providing needed personal professional services to the community, Jerry also provided legal services (most often pro bono) to a great majority of the organizations that served Miami’s LGBTQ community over the years.

In the ‘90s and ‘00s, Jerry wrote articles in bar publications and gave continuing legaleducation programs about “Planning for Alternative Families,” educating the bar about the ways to take care of LGBTQ+ families before they were legally recognized as such. During this time, he also served on the national board of Lambda Legal.

 In addition to his work in the LGBTQ+ space, Jerry’s other practice focus was charitablegiving—especially legacy giving. He learned that finding out what clients really value is the key to a successful plan for an individual or family—but that too often, advisors did not include those conversations in their planning meetings. Recognizing that advisors are the way most people do their planning, Jerry created the Advisors Project, an ongoing continuing education program designed to encourage and support various professional advisors in creating client relationships that are both satisfying to their clients personally and also are productive for philanthropy. Advisors Project programs received continuing education credits for both lawyers and financial planners all across the country.

After retiring from private practice, Jerry continued to focus his work on legacy planning. He first served on the board of SAGE, a national organization providing services and advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ Elders. A few years later when SAGE decided to hire a Planned Giving Officer, Jerry helped design the position, secured an agreement with a donor to fund it, then applied and became SAGE’s first Director of Legacy Planning. He continued in that position until he retired in 2021.

 Elizabeth Schwartz (pronouns: she/her) has been practicing law since 1997 and is a nationally recognized advocate for the legal rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) community. She is the author of the book Before I Do: A Legal Guide to Marriage, Gay and Otherwise (The New Press, 2016).

While her Miami-based firm works with all clients in matters of family formation (adoption and surrogacy) and dissolution, estate planning and probate, she has been on the forefront of providing crucial legal protections for LGBTQ+ families before and since the arrival of marriage equality, and finalized the first divorce for a same-sex couple in Florida. Elizabeth assists transgender and gender diverse clients with name and gender marker changes. Elizabeth has handled surrogacy for 25 years, starting with gay male intended parents and evolving to assist all IPs, gestational carriers and egg and sperm donors with their legal needs. She is the author of “LGBT Issues in Surrogacy” in the Handbook of Gestational Surrogacy, ed. E. Scott Sills (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Elizabeth is board certified by the Florida Bar in Adoption Law, is a fellow of the Academy of Adoption C Assisted Reproduction Attorneys and the Florida Adoption Council, and serves as an adoption intermediary helping make forever families of all kinds.

Elizabeth served as counsel on the victorious cases challenging Florida's marriage ban brought by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) on behalf of six same-sex couples and members of the Equality Florida Institute seeking the right to marry (Pareto v. Ruvin) and suing Florida for fair issuance of birth certificates to same-sex married couples (Chin). She also served as counsel in several cases that helped overturn Florida's bigoted 1977 ban forbidding gays and lesbians from adopting children.

Elizabeth served as the co-chair of the national board of SAGE (Advocacy & Services for LGBT Elders) from 2015-2021. She is a member of the National Family Law Advisory Council of NCLR as well as its National Leadership Council, and a Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

A Miami Beach native, Elizabeth received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law.