Deutsch and her partner, Teresa Williams, have been together for 28 years and have three children. However improbable legislative repeal of DOMA is in the near future, Deutsch's professional raison d'être,as Freedom to Marry national campaign director Marc Solomon sees it, "is to make our strongest case in D.C. with every influential player. Members of Congress, political operatives, the press corps -- you name it."
And by hiring Lehman, the organization is taking a page out of the playbook from Proposition 8 opponents, who hired polar opposites Ted Olson and David Boies to make a court win happen.
Lehman, who has a law degree from the Catholic University of America, joined Holland & Knight in 2005 after working for a who's who of GOP lawmakers -- Gingrich, Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and Deborah Pryce among them. As The Hill noted in November, the Republicans' takeover of the House in the 2010 midterm election has only raised her lobbying profile in Washington.