June 25, 2009 OPM General Counsel Elaine Kaplan to Keynote Library’s Celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month

The Library of Congress celebrates the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans with a keynote address by U.S. Office of Personnel Management General Counsel Elaine Kaplan at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30 in the Montpelier Room, located on the sixth floor of the Library’s James Madison Building located at 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The event, which is sponsored jointly by the Library’s Office of Opportunity, Inclusiveness and Compliance, and LC GLOBE, is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required, but seating is limited.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Kaplan earned a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University in 1979. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from the State University of New York in Binghamton in 1976. She began her legal career in the Solicitor’s office of the U.S. Department of Labor, first in the Employee Benefits Division, and later in the Division of Special Appellate and Supreme Court litigation. She served as senior deputy general counsel for the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents the interests of more than 150,000 federal employees nationwide.

In 1998, Kaplan was appointed by President Bill Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to serve as the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency whose mission is to protect the merit-based civil service. In 2003, she joined Bernabei and Katz, a nationally recognized plaintiff’s side employment law and civil rights firm. Kaplan re-joined NTEU in 2004 and began her tenure as an adjunct professor at American University’s School of Public Administration. Prior to her appointment as OPM General Counsel in March 2009, she served on President Barack Obama’s transition team as an agency review team leader in the Government Operations Group.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a new, personalized website at myLOC.gov.