A Wilton lawyer represented the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.
Joshua Kaye, who is an associate at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison LLP, based in New York City, was on the team representing plaintiff Edith Windsor, according to the Wilton Bulletin.
Windsor sued the federal government when she was unable to receive a tax exemption on her partner's estate after her partner of 40 years passed away because of Section 3 of DOMA.
Section 3 defined marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman, thus making homosexual partners ineligible for the federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive.
Kaye, a Wilton native, attended Wesleyan University for his undergraduate degree and Duke University for law school, according to the Bulletin.
Kaye was a clerk for a Manhattan federal judge before working for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison LLP. He feels he was lucky to have been part of the team representing Windsor.
“When the House of Representatives, which was defending the law since the Obama administration had declined to defend the law, appealed to the Second Circuit, I was tremendously fortunate to be asked to join the team representing Edie in the Court of Appeals," Kaye said in an interview with the Wilton Bulletin.
He helped write the Court of Appeals brief for Windsor's case and assisted Roberta Kaplan, the lead lawyer, in preparing the case, according to the Bulletin.After winning the Court of Appeals case, Kaye went to Washington, D.C., with Kaplan to prepare the Supreme Court brief, according to the Bulletin.
On June 26, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that DOMA was unconstitutional and declined to rule on California's Proposition 8, thereby making same sex marriage legal in California and making married gay couples eligible for the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples in the 13 states, including Connecticut, where gay marriage was already legal.
Hearing the ruling was Kaye's favorite moment as a lawyer so far, he said.
“It was easily the most rewarding moment of my professional career,” he told the Bulletin.
Kaye lives with his wife and their dog in New York and told the Bulletin he still comes to Wilton often to visit his parents.
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