Pride Month Spotlight Series: Rob Maitner

As part of our Pride Month celebration, we’ve asked our colleagues to reflect on the significance of this month.

Cleary Gottlieb partnership resources manager Rob Maitner shares some of his thoughts below.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Cleary.

I have worked at Cleary for going on 15 years now. I started as a temp legal secretary in the spring of 2007, and I just stayed. One of the reasons for staying so long is that I have always felt comfortable being my whole self here. About five years ago, I transitioned to the Partnership Resources department and have become the manager of this department. The team and I support the partnership in a variety of ways from HR-related functions to partner development, and lateral partner recruitment, to name a few. My main focus is on the planning and execution of our global partner meetings. I have the pleasure of putting together a new team for each meeting, and I’m very lucky to work in a place with so many dedicated, resourceful, and intelligent professionals.

What does Pride Month mean to you?

One doesn’t choose to be queer, but one absolutely chooses to be out. It is a choice you make every single day of your life. It is a constant negation I have with myself based on my level of comfort in a given situation. It can be exhausting. Pride Month allows me to relax a bit more into my queerness. There is an energy during the month of June here in New York that reminds me of the progress we’ve made. That’s something to celebrate. To be honest, I’ve gotten a little too relaxed and blasé about Pride after all the strides our community has made. But now, we are facing a time where those achievements are being threatened. We are being called the worst possible names while at the same time having the most visibility we’ve ever had. Pride is once again a time to stand up and be seen. It’s a time to fight for our queer siblings. Liberation for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community means liberation for everyone.

Has your identity impacted how you approach your work and career? If so, how?

I came out during the worst of the AIDS epidemic. It was a very scary time, but being able to be out and, most importantly, loud has given me a certain amount of courage. Living through that made me understand that I couldn’t ever sacrifice being out for a job. It is part of my whole being, and how could I ever give my best to my work if I had to hide something so intrinsic? I couldn’t be nearly as effective if I couldn’t casually mention my husband or have a picture of us on my desk. Plus, I get a kick out of making people deal with everything that is Rob Maitner. The good, the bad, the loud.

Are there any leaders, activists, writers/artists, professionals, or family members who have inspired you?

My uncle Michael (whom we call Mimi because my brother couldn’t say his name as a young child) is a man who grew up and came of age in the 50s and 60s and struggled with his identity as a gay man. It was a bit of an open secret in our family. He would bring his “friend” to family events. How my grandparents never quite caught on until he finally told them after I came out to my family is beyond me. Even though it was a glass closet, I could see him clearly and knew that not only did I have him on my side but that my parents would support me because they supported him. He’s a man who struggled for a long time, and now he’s married and living in the South of France.

In terms of other queer people who inspire me, I discovered artist Keith Haring and playwright Charles Busch when I was in high school. Harvey Milk, Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera are all people who both inspire me and make me feel like I’m never doing enough to help our community. And then there are writers/composers like Stephen Sondheim and Tony Kushner—the people who have really shaped me as both an artist (did I mention I’m also an actor and singer?) as well as a queer man.

When you’re underrepresented in your chosen field, why is it important to have mentors and sponsors who are invested in you and your career?

This question reminds me of perhaps the loneliest time of my life. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I had been out and thriving and happier there than I had ever been. And then I came home. I wasn’t out to my family at the time and, though I was out to my friends, none of them were queer. It was an incredibly isolating experience, and I could feel myself contracting. That has stayed with me for over 30 years, and it’s something I vowed I would never feel again. To do that, I would seek out other queer people in every aspect of my life—professionally and personally. It can be a tricky thing to navigate being out in a workplace. Not everyone has the same comfort level. But I truly do believe you cannot do your best work without being your full self. Finding queer mentors and sponsors—or even just queer friends and colleagues—allows people to relax and focus on the work knowing that there is support in the workplace.

What are the benefits of joining groups that focus on LGTBQ+’s topics and issues?

The queer community is in some ways an invisible underrepresented community. You don’t necessarily know someone is queer by looking at them. Yes, gaydar exists and everyone thinks they have it (they don’t). Yes, my gaydar is refined enough to know who had that one drunken night in college. But you cannot always identify queerness by sight. Having a space for queer people to get together to just be is essential. It can be easy to be siloed into our own departments and not get a broader view of our co-workers across the firm. Having the time and space to connect with other queer people creates community and a network of people you can rely on for both professional and personal support.

Are there any programs at Cleary that you have been part of that have contributed to your professional journey and feeling included at the firm?

I recently completed the Management@Cleary program, which offered new managers the chance to develop the skills needed in their roles. It was incredibly helpful. At one of our first meetings, the woman sitting next to me very casually referred to her wife, which to my surprise, made breathe easier. It’s funny how, even after 32 years of being out, it’s still a relief to know you are with other members of your community.

What is your favorite thing about working in the legal industry, and why did you choose to work at Cleary?

After graduating from drama school my parents offered to pay for (begged me to go to?) law school. I told them, in no uncertain terms, thanks but no thanks. But my dad is a retired attorney. My sister is an attorney. A good number of my friends are attorneys. It’s an industry I feel comfortable moving through even though I have no desire to be an attorney. Cleary was only supposed to be a part time gig, but when I realized that I could very comfortably be my whole self here, I knew I found a place I could stay for as long as I wanted.

Is there anything I haven’t asked you about that you would want to share with the Cleary community?

You haven’t asked me about being one of the lead singers of the Cee Gees, the firm’s in-house band made up of a number of very talented partners and few members of the professional staff. It’s kind of a nuts thing to be involved with, but we recently won a law firm battle of the bands at Law Rocks San Francisco. (Sometimes I cannot believe the sentences I type here.) At any rate, we raised a whole lot of money for an amazing organization, George Mark Children’s House, and I wanted to take a quick moment here to thank everyone here at Cleary who supported our efforts.