Nancy Polikoff

Nancy Polikoff

Affiliated Scholar

Nancy Polikoff is a Visiting Scholar at the Williams Institute and Professor of Law Emerita at American University Washington College of Law where she taught Family Law and a seminar on Children of LGBT Parents. In 1976, Nancy co-authored one of the first law review articles on custody rights of lesbian mothers. She has written about, taught about, and worked on litigation about LGBT families. Her book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law, was published in 2008. Before joining academia in 1987, Nancy co-founded the Washington, DC Feminist Law Collective and then supervised family law programs at the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. She is a former chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues and a member of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.