Faculty Profile: Abby Rubenfeld

Abby Rubenfeld has a general law practice in Nashville with an emphasis on family law, civil rights,and sexual orientation and AIDS-related issues. She was co-counsel for the Tennessee plaintiffs in the 2015 marriage equality case decided by the United States Supreme Court, Obergefell v. Hodges (Tanco v. Haslam). She formerly served on the board of directors of the ACLU of Tennessee and on the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization and the largest lesbian and gay political organization in the world, for seven years. She also served for more than five years as Legal Director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., a national civil rights organization that conducts test case litigation across the country on behalf of lesbian and gay rights and AIDS issues. She was named Nashvillian of the Year in 2015 by the Nashville Scene magazine. She is a past recipient of the Bill of Rights Award from the ACLU of Tennessee, and the Dan Bradley Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, which recognized her outstanding efforts on behalf of equality under the law. 

Ms. Rubenfeld received a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1979.She received an A.B. with honors from Princeton University, and while there, lettered in basketball and crew and was the first woman elected as a class president in more than 225 years of Princeton history.

She has two daughters, ages seventeen and thirteen years old, as well as a partner, Helia Rethmann, and step-daughter, aged twelve. Ms. Rubenfeld is a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, teaching Sexual Orientation and the Law.