Amanda Simmons presents on enforcing conversion therapy legislation for the Chicago Bar Association
Ambika Law, PC is proud to announce that founder and attorney Amanda Simmons presented "Understanding and Enforcing Conversion Therapy Legislation: An Illinois Pilot Project" for The Chicago Bar Association on May 21, 2025.
The program
Amanda's presentation was one of six sessions in the CBA's fourth annual Professional Responsibility Overview — a full-day virtual program hosted by the association's Continuing Legal Education Committee. The program carried six hours of Illinois Professional Responsibility MCLE credit, including the Diversity and Inclusion and the Mental Health and Substance Abuse credits Illinois attorneys are required to complete.
That placement matters. The other sessions covered the ethics of negotiation, generative artificial intelligence, litigating in a divided nation, and lessons from the year's disciplinary decisions. Conversion therapy enforcement was presented not as a niche civil rights topic but as a professional responsibility question — one that sits squarely within a practicing lawyer's ethical obligations.
An Illinois pilot project
Illinois has prohibited conversion therapy for minors since the Youth Mental Health Protection Act took effect in 2016. But a statute on the books and a statute that is actually enforced are two different things. Bans of this kind are typically enforced through professional licensing boards rather than through the courts, which means that whether a young person is protected often depends on whether anyone knows how to file a complaint, where to file it, and what happens after they do.
The Illinois pilot project addressed exactly that gap. Rather than re-litigating whether conversion therapy is harmful — a question the major medical and mental health associations settled long ago — the session focused on the enforcement machinery: identifying who is covered by the law and who falls outside it, understanding the complaint and disciplinary pathways available through Illinois's regulatory structure, and equipping attorneys to recognize and act on violations when families bring them forward.
The coalition behind the work
The program's speaker roster reflects the coalition this work grew out of. Alongside Amanda, the CBA program featured Candace Gingrich, Community Engagement Manager at the NASW Illinois Chapter; Malcolm "Skip" Harsch, Director of the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; and Tanner Mobley, Manager of State Advocacy Campaigns at The Trevor Project.
Those same partners carried the project forward. In December 2025, Amanda co-authored the Illinois Conversion Therapy Legal Accountability Guide with The Trevor Project — a practitioner-facing resource launched through the Illinois coalition and published by the NASW Illinois Chapter. The May presentation and the December guide are two stages of the same effort: first teaching Illinois attorneys how enforcement works, then handing them the tool to do it.
Why Ambika Law does this work
Amanda serves as an American Bar Association Commissioner on the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for the 2025–2026 term, following her appointment as an ABA Presidential Fellow to the same commission for 2024–2025. She also served on the Amicus Brief Committee for Kaley Chiles v. Patty Salazar, No. 24-539, after the Supreme Court granted certiorari in March 2025.
At Ambika Law, PC, this work belongs to the same mission as the firm's advocacy on institutional child abuse and the troubled teen industry: young people are placed in the care of adults who hold power over them, and the law has to be more than words on a page when that power is misused. Enforcement is where protection either happens or doesn't.
The Chicago Bar Association · Professional Responsibility Overview · May 21, 2025 · Session 3 of 6 · Available on demand through CBA Learning.
The program
Amanda's presentation was one of six sessions in the CBA's fourth annual Professional Responsibility Overview — a full-day virtual program hosted by the association's Continuing Legal Education Committee. The program carried six hours of Illinois Professional Responsibility MCLE credit, including the Diversity and Inclusion and the Mental Health and Substance Abuse credits Illinois attorneys are required to complete.
That placement matters. The other sessions covered the ethics of negotiation, generative artificial intelligence, litigating in a divided nation, and lessons from the year's disciplinary decisions. Conversion therapy enforcement was presented not as a niche civil rights topic but as a professional responsibility question — one that sits squarely within a practicing lawyer's ethical obligations.
An Illinois pilot project
Illinois has prohibited conversion therapy for minors since the Youth Mental Health Protection Act took effect in 2016. But a statute on the books and a statute that is actually enforced are two different things. Bans of this kind are typically enforced through professional licensing boards rather than through the courts, which means that whether a young person is protected often depends on whether anyone knows how to file a complaint, where to file it, and what happens after they do.
The Illinois pilot project addressed exactly that gap. Rather than re-litigating whether conversion therapy is harmful — a question the major medical and mental health associations settled long ago — the session focused on the enforcement machinery: identifying who is covered by the law and who falls outside it, understanding the complaint and disciplinary pathways available through Illinois's regulatory structure, and equipping attorneys to recognize and act on violations when families bring them forward.
The coalition behind the work
The program's speaker roster reflects the coalition this work grew out of. Alongside Amanda, the CBA program featured Candace Gingrich, Community Engagement Manager at the NASW Illinois Chapter; Malcolm "Skip" Harsch, Director of the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; and Tanner Mobley, Manager of State Advocacy Campaigns at The Trevor Project.
Those same partners carried the project forward. In December 2025, Amanda co-authored the Illinois Conversion Therapy Legal Accountability Guide with The Trevor Project — a practitioner-facing resource launched through the Illinois coalition and published by the NASW Illinois Chapter. The May presentation and the December guide are two stages of the same effort: first teaching Illinois attorneys how enforcement works, then handing them the tool to do it.
Why Ambika Law does this work
Amanda serves as an American Bar Association Commissioner on the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for the 2025–2026 term, following her appointment as an ABA Presidential Fellow to the same commission for 2024–2025. She also served on the Amicus Brief Committee for Kaley Chiles v. Patty Salazar, No. 24-539, after the Supreme Court granted certiorari in March 2025.
At Ambika Law, PC, this work belongs to the same mission as the firm's advocacy on institutional child abuse and the troubled teen industry: young people are placed in the care of adults who hold power over them, and the law has to be more than words on a page when that power is misused. Enforcement is where protection either happens or doesn't.
The Chicago Bar Association · Professional Responsibility Overview · May 21, 2025 · Session 3 of 6 · Available on demand through CBA Learning.
