Paweł Knut

3 December 2018

Advocate, member of the Warsaw Bar Association and the Human Rights Section in the Bar Council in Warsaw. Winner of the special award in the Rising Stars – Lawyers – leaders of tomorrow 2019 competition. Lecturer in the Department of Training of Trainee Advocates at the Warsaw Bar Association. Doctor of Humanities in the field of Cultural Studies.

Between 2011 and 2021 he was a lawyer at the Campaign Against Homophobia. He has over 13 years of experience in the provision of legal assistance in cases related to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which also includes the representation of clients before national and international judicial authorities.

So far, he has acted, among others:

  • as a legal representative in the so-called Printer from Łódź case, that led to a precedent judgment of the Supreme Court, in which the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the access to services was confirmed for the first time [see more],
  • as a legal representative of Jakub Lendzion in the case against one of the Warsaw public schools, in which the first-ever ruling was issued that stated the school’s responsibility for violating the personal rights of a student experiencing homophobia from other students [see more],
  • as a coordinator of the Coalition for Civil Partnerships and Marriage Equality, a strategic litigation program in which 5 same-sex couples lodged the applications to the European Court of Human Rights which resulted in issuing a judgment on 12 December 2023 that obliges Poland to introduce legal provisions allowing same-sex couples to formalize their relationship [see more].

In the last 8 years he has also collaborated with a number of national non-governmental organizations specializing in human rights protection, including Polish Society for Anti-Discrimination LawLambda Warsaw, Open Republic, Love Does Not Exclude Association and Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

In addition to his legal practice, he is also an academic researcher. In 2023, he obtained his doctoral degree at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw based on his dissertation on counteracting the phenomenon of hate speech. As a Fulbright Scholar in the academic year of 2019/2020 he conducted research at The New School (New York).

He is the author and co-author of several publications on the legal protection of LGBT persons in Poland, including:

Handbook for Legal Practitioners in Hate Crime Proceedings

Parental Rights of LGBT Persons

Rights of LGBT Persons in Poland – Jurisprudence

Contact

KMA Law Firm
Krucza 5/11 St., apt. 45
00-548 Warsaw

phone no. +48 793 907 807