2022 Hall of Fame Inductee Ernesto Scorsone Class of 1976

Ernesto Scorsone has served on the Board of Governors of the KBA as well as the Fayette County Bar Association. He has served on the Kentucky Supreme Court’s commission on gender bias and led the recent effort to survey the Bench and Bar on race, gender and LGBT attitudes in our legal system. Ernesto chaired the Commission that helped institute Family Courts in Kentucky and helped secure funding of Kentucky's Drug Courts.

Scorsone served in the Kentucky Legislature: twelve years in the House and twelve years in the Senate. He was a champion of health care reforms, improved funding of our public school system and civil rights legislation. Scorsone also served as Fayette Circuit Court Judge for 13 years. During his tenure he instituted Fayette County’s first conciliation conferences to avoid residential foreclosures.

For the past 40 years, Scorsone has been a strong advocate for LGBT rights. He was lead counsel in Commonwealth v Wasson which overturned Kentucky's Fourth Degree Sodomy statute. He helped enact a Fairness ordinance in Lexington and led many fundraising campaigns for the LGBT community. Most recently he helped create a two million dollar permanent endowment to fund LGBT education efforts throughout the state. In 2010, Scorsone was inducted in Kentucky's Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

Scorsone earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Kentucky in 1973, and went on to earn his Juris Doctor from the same institution in 1976.