Human Rights Campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C. June 12, 2018.

Alphonso David, who currently serves as counsel to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will leave the Cuomo Administration after more than a decade to become the new president of the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

David, the first openly gay counsel to any governor in New York, will be the first person of color, and the first attorney with a background in civil rights law, to lead the organization.

The Human Rights Campaign made the announcement in a video posted online Tuesday afternoon. David, appearing in the video, recounted his experience living in Liberia—then Baltimore—and now in New York, where he's been one of Cuomo's closest advisers for more than a decade.

“I was fortunate enough to start working with Governor Cuomo in the Attorney General's office and to continue our work together in the Governor's office, where I had the privilege of working on the marriage equality law and several other important pieces of legislation,” David said in a statement on his departure.

David is known to have a hand in just about everything in Cuomo's office. He reviews legislation sent to the office for any legal concerns, reviews inquiries from the media, negotiates with members of the Legislature, plays a role in political strategy, and more.

He's often stunned reporters and staff alike with an encyclopedic knowledge of what's happening in state government. He has frequently joined Cuomo during public appearances with the press in recent years, particularly in Albany, but has also been the face of a number of the administration's priorities.

Before he was selected as Cuomo's counsel, David was the first deputy secretary and counsel for civil rights in New York. The first person to hold that position, he was responsible for a number of tasks ranging from legislative matters to legal counsel. He also served as special deputy attorney general for civil rights in the New York Attorney General's Office.

David highlighted his work in state government in the video, in which he outlined his vision for the Human Rights Campaign going forward.

“If we want to win full equality, that's going to require us to come together, to dig deep, to be resilient, to embrace our differences, to tenaciously defend the most vulnerable among us, to fight with every ounce of determination we have.” David said in the video.

He was previously a staff attorney at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a civil rights organization with a focus on legal services for the LGBTQ community.

That's been a common theme in David's legal career. He's consistently used the positions he's held to address legal and societal issues involving the LGBTQ community. During his 12-year tenure in state government, he was instrumental in legalizing same-sex marriage in New York, banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors, and most recently worked to end the so-called “gay panic” defense in New York.

“Alphonso has devoted his career to expanding the civil rights of LGBTQ people across New York State and the nation,” said Deb Taft, who chairs the HRC Foundation board. “At a time when LGBTQ people, women, people of color, immigrants and refugees, and so many others are being confronted with daily attacks on our most basic rights, Alphonso is the fierce, compassionate, and strategic leader HRC and our broader movement for equality needs.”

Cuomo, who selected David as his counsel in 2015, hailed his work in state government in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“As a key member of this administration and before that as part of my staff at the Attorney General's office, he had always served with compassion, dignity, intelligence, and a virtually unrivaled work ethic,” Cuomo said. “Make no mistake New Yorkers are better off today because of his years of public service and we will miss him tremendously.”

David spent part of his youth in Liberia, where his uncle served as the nation's president. His family fled the country and settled in Baltimore after political turmoil in the nation that led to his uncle's assassination.

He's a graduate of the University of Maryland and Temple University of Law, after which he clerked for U.S. District Judge Clifford Scott Green from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He also worked as a litigation associate at Blank Rome.

David will be the seventh president of HRC in the organization's four-decade history. He'll assume his new role starting in August, according to HRC.

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