Ellen Yacknin files on the Gay Alliance of Genesee Valley v. City Assessor, City of Rochester court case

Ellen Yacknin attended Grinnell College, graduating in 1974, before graduating with her J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1977. She passed the bar in Pennsylvania in 1977 before going on to serve in a number of positions as attorney and law clerk from 1977 to 1989. In 1989, she became Senior Health Care and Litigation Attorney, Greater Upstate Law Project, Inc., a position she held until 2002. It was during this time that she represented the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley in their case against the City Assessor of the City of Rochester. In 2002, Ellen Yacknin was elected Judge of the Rochester City Court. She was reelected in 2013, a position she will hold until 2022. She also volunteers with Rochester Teen Court and the Trial Moot Court programs of the Boy Scouts and Cornell Law School.

The case of the Gay Alliance of Genesee Valley v. City Assessor, City of Rochester came out of the March 1991 decision by Rochester's City Assessor to deny the Gay Alliance a property tax exemption (the organization received its Federal examption on November 19, 1981). The Assessor's office decided that the Gay Alliance was an advocacy group and, therefore, not eligible for a tax exemption as an educational organization. The Gay Alliance, with Ellen Yacknin as counsel, sued the City of Rochester, claiming that it was being discriminated against due to, in the words of Judge Andrew V. Siracuse, "membership and focus." The court case would take over two years to resolve, including appeals. Finally, on April 6, 1993, Judge Siracuse decided against the City of Rochester, stating that the denial of the property tax examption by the City of Rochester was an act of discrimination and that the City must grant the examption to the Gay Alliance.