About Us

Rainbow Law Center, PLLC was founded to serve the legal needs of Michgan's LGBTQ community. Our goal is to provide a safe and comfortable space where clients can obtain expert advice from lawyers dedicated to defending their rights, protecting their families and building their businesses.

We were founded by two members of the community, Denise and Mary.

About Mary Kator, Chief Counsel

Mary is a 1984 graduate of The University of Michigan Law School, after earning an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from St. Louis University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Mary's legal career has included representation of individuals, small companies, and large corporations, and has involved a wide variety of legal issues. She has substantial experience in employment law, as well as litigation of civil disputes ranging from small claims to large class actions. In addition to expertise in legal research and brief writing, she has drafted a wide range of legal documents and contracts, and has also worked on drafts of proposed federal and state legislation.

She is a member in good standing of the State Bar of Michigan, and is admitted to practice in the federal courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, she has practiced before state and federal agencies such as the EEOC, as well as state and federal courts throughout the United States.

On a personal level, Mary has decided to point her career in a new and more rewarding direction - towards representation of the LGBTQ community, of which she is a proud member. With her spouse Denise, she is committed to using her experience and talents for the benefit of clients who could not otherwise access the high quality of legal services normally available only to corporate America.

Contact Mary at Mary@RainbowLawCenter.com

 

About Denise Brogan-Kator, Managing Attorney

In addition to her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, Denise has an extensive business background. She has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Metropolitan State College (in Colorado, where she practiced as a CPA for a number of years early in her career) and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Colorado, Executive Program.   She is a member in good standing of the State Bar of Michigan, the American Bar Association, National Lesbian and Gay Law Association and the Michigan chapter of the Stonewall Bar Association.

In 2002 as the Chief Financial Officer for a software company in Tampa, FL she engineered the second largest merger of the year in the software industry. Previously, she had helped to guide the company to an Inc. "Top 100" ranking 3 years in a row. She has substantial experience in business planning and modeling, having developed business plans for companies ranging in size from start-up to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Denise's practice areas include family law (including divorce, custody and parenting time issues), estate planning, contracts and business planning, transgender-specific services and domestic partnership creation and dissolution.  A strong and experienced negotiator, Denise is also an experienced litigator and a believer in working with both sides to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Denise has been a participant and a leader in the transgender rights movement since the mid 1990s. During that time, she co-founded a national organization focused on outreach, education, and timely intervention on behalf of its transgender membership. She currently serves as the President and Board Chair of the Board of Trustees for Michigan's state-wide advocacy organization, Triangle Foundation, and is an active member of Transgender Michigan, GenderPAC , National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, and more.

Denise has appeared on national television (20/20 and the Discovery Channel's Transgender Revolution). She has walked the halls of the US Congress and met personally with Senators and Representatives from around our country. Through these efforts and others less public, she has personally helped people keep their families together, retain their jobs, and find peace with themselves and those around them.

Contact Denise at Denise@RainbowLawCenter.com