Biography
Alphonse A. Gerhardstein is a partner in the civil rights firm of Friedman, Gilbert +Gerhardstein. https://www.fggfirm.com/al-gerhardstein. For more than 48 years he has litigated civil rights issues including police misconduct, race, sex, sexual orientation and disability discrimination, prisoner rights, voting rights, and reproductive health issues. For three decades he represented abortion providers in Ohio. He was counsel of record in Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court case establishing marriage equality for same sex couples in all 50 states. His long struggle to secure LGBQ rights is chronicled in a book by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell, Love Wins, and in episode #5 of the Netflix series hosted by Will Smith, Amend: The Fight for America. https://www.netflix.com/title/80219054. Mr. Gerhardstein is the Founder of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center www.ohiojpc.org which pursues criminal justice reform and litigates human rights in prison. He earned his J.D. degree from and was a Root Tilden Scholar at New York University. Mr. Gerhardstein litigates causes, not just cases, and pursues reforms in all of his practice areas. He now splits his time between St. Paul, Minnesota and Cincinnati.
