Nikki Trautman Baszynski (she/her) is an attorney and journalist based in Columbus, Ohio, whose work is largely focused on the injustices of the criminal legal system. Most recently, Nikki served as a managing editor for The Appeal, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to exposing the failures and harms of the U.S. criminal legal system. Prior to joining The Appeal, Nikki was senior legal counsel for The Justice Collaborative and a public defender in the Appeals and Postconviction Section of The Ohio Public Defender. Nikki began her legal career as the Greif Fellow in Juvenile Human Trafficking at The Ohio State Moritz College of Law.

Siobhan Boyd-Nelson, J.D. (she/her/hers) is the former Deputy Director for Equality Ohio. She received her B.A. in Legal Communication from Howard University in 2002. She returned home to Columbus and earned her J.D. from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in 2005. Her involvement in Columbus’ LGBTQ community began shortly thereafter and has included leadership positions on the boards of LinkOUT, Scarlet & Gay (the OSU GLBT Alumni Society), and the Legacy Fund of the Columbus Foundation. Siobhan practiced law in the domestic, probate, and appellate fields before entering the nonprofit sector in 2012. At Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Siobhan served as the development and marketing manager before moving to Stonewall Columbus where she led the community center’s capital campaign. Siobhan joined Equality Ohio as the Director of Development in 2018. Siobhan has served on numerous community boards and is currently serving as a board member for Black, OUT & Proud. She is a member of the Columbus Business First 40 Under 40 Class of 2019 and a recipient of the Create Columbus Visionary Award. Siobhan has lent her voice to discussions about LGBTQ+ identity, race, and the intersection of identities in forums across the state including Cincinnati Black Pride, the United Way of Central Ohio, the Ohio State Bar Association, and the Ohio Diversity and Leadership Conference.

Maya Simek, ESQ, LISW-S, MSSA, serves as the Co-Legal Director at Equality Ohio, where she developed, launched (2019), and is now supervising a state-wide legal clinic for the lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer (LGBTQ+) community.  Ms. Simek further serves as a Clinical Law Professor/Director of Case Western Reserve School of Law’s Human Trafficking Law Project. She focuses her practice on the interdisciplinary issues impacting the LGBTQ+ community and human trafficking survivors, community lawyering, and the intersections between law and social work. Ms. Simek earned her J.D.  from Cleveland State University College of Law, her M.S.S.A from Case Western Reserve’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, her B.S. from John Carroll University, and is a proud graduate of the Gestalt Training Program (GTP) at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland (GIC). In addition, she is an Ohio Licensed Independent Social Worker with Supervision designation (LISW-S).

 

Kim Burroughs (she/her/hers) is Assistant State Public Defender with the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, a former staff attorney with the Equality Ohio Legal Clinic and a virtual CLE instructor with the Equality Ohio Legal Clinic. She graduated from the Ohio State University College of Law in 2016. Kim has worked primarily in the field of criminal law. She began her career as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Delaware County, Ohio and then worked as a Criminal Staff Attorney in the Delaware Common Pleas Court before joining the Equality Ohio Legal Clinic as a staff attorney. Kim is passionate about working with the LGTBQ+ community and strives to provide trauma informed service to clients.

Emily Meyer (she/her/hers) is a former Staff Attorney in the Equality Ohio Legal Clinic. She graduated from the University of Dayton School of Law in 2008. After a number of years practicing law in Cincinnati, including both transactional and litigation work, she returned to graduate school to pursue an M.A. in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies from the University of Cincinnati. An Ohio native, Emily counts herself lucky to have resided all across the Buckeye State including in Dayton, Columbus, Cambridge, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Emily is committed to LGBTQ+ equality as well as gender and racial justice—and the intersections therein. She is a founding member of both the Cincinnati Women’s Fund’s Engagement Committee and the YP Board of Cincinnati Works, a local nonprofit working towards poverty reduction by connecting job seekers with employment training and opportunities. Emily is admitted to practice in the State of Ohio and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. She is based in the Cincinnati area.