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A Celebration of Public Interest
March 13-15, 2008
Bios
Friday, March 14Public Interest Success Stories
Moderator
Wlliam B. Rubenstein '86, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, is an expert in civil procedure whose scholarship focuses on class action law. He is a celebrated teacher who has won several teaching awards. Prior to joining the HLS faculty in 2007, Rubenstein taught full time at UCLA Law, and has also taught as an adjunct professor at Stanford and Yale Law Schools. Rubenstein is the author, co-author, or editor of four books and dozens of scholarly articles and shorter publications, most of which concern various aspects of complex litigation. He has also litigated, served as an expert witness, and regularly provides consulting services to attorneys involved in complex procedural matters.
Before beginning his academic career, Rubenstein worked for nearly a decade at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union, litigating sexual orientation and AIDS discrimination cases in federal and state courts throughout the U.S. He published the first law school casebook in the sexual orientation field and co-authored "The Rights of People Who are HIV Positive," which received the 1997 American Bar Association Certificate of Merit. Rubenstein's extensive practice experience has earned him numerous awards, and he was named one of top 20 lawyers under 40 in the state of California by California Law Business in May of 2000. He was also given the Award of Courage from the American Foundation for AIDS research.
Rachel L. Brand '98 was confirmed by the United States Senate as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy of the United States Department of Justice in 2005. As the Assistant Attorney General, she managed the development of a variety of civil and criminal policy initiatives, the creation of departmental regulations, and the Department's role in the confirmation of the President's judicial nominees.
Prior to her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General, Brand served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy and focused particularly on issues related to the war on terrorism. She also served as an Associate Counsel to the President and was associated with the law firm Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal. Ms. Brand clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Charles Fried.
Maina Kiai '89, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, is the Chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). He was appointed by H.E. President Mwai Kibaki on July 29, 2003 as a Commissioner of the National Commission from names submitted by Parliament, and elected Chairman unanimously by the other Commissioners. In November 2004, Kiai was nominated, and accepted, to sit in the Steering Committee of the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF), which comprises national police oversight and human rights institutions in Africa, as a way to foster more accountability from the police forces in Africa.
Prior to taking up his position with the National Commission, Kiai was the Director of Africa Programs at the International Human Rights Law Group (now Global Rights) based in Washington DC. Kiai also served as Africa Director at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International (AI) in London, UK from 1999 to 2001, where he has the record of being the longest serving Africa Director in the organization. He played a key role in the decentralization of the International Secretariat to locations outside London, and was a leader in change management.
Kiai is the founding Executive Director of the nongovernmental Kenya Human Rights Commission. Among his major achievements in KHRC was the revitalization of the constitutional reform process, which Kiai spearheaded by organizing and writing the Proposal for a Model Constitution in 1995 in conjunction with the Law Society of Kenya and the International Commission of Jurists (Kenya Chapter).
Thomas J. Miller '69 is currently serving his seventh four-year term as Attorney General of Iowa. After law school, Miller served as a VISTA volunteer in Baltimore, Maryland, and then as legislative assistant to U.S. Representative John C. Culver (D-IA.) He returned to the Baltimore Legal Aid Bureau as legal education director, and he also taught part-time at the Maryland School of Law. In 1973, Tom returned to live in Iowa. He opened a law practice in McGregor in northeast Iowa and served as city attorney of McGregor and Marquette, Iowa. He ran for Attorney General in 1974.
As Attorney General, Miller has earned a reputation for integrity, high quality legal work, and strong work on behalf of ordinary Iowans. He has a long record of achieving results through cooperation with other State Attorneys Generals and with local, state and federal officials, regardless of their political affiliation. He has served as President of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) and received NAAG’s Wyman Award as the Attorney General who contributed most to NAAG and its members. He has chaired several NAAG committees and led major multi-state addressing tobacco issues, antitrust enforcement, agriculture, and consumer protection.
Robert C. Owen '89, Clinical Professor of Law at UI Law School, has defended people facing the death penalty at every level of the state and federal court system, including arguing successfully at the United States Supreme Court. He has taught at the University of Texas Law School continuously since 1998. After spending six years as an attorney with the Texas Resource Center in Austin, Owen served for three years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Seattle, Washington before entering private practice in Austin. He co-directs the Capital Punishment Clinic, shares responsibility for teaching the classroom course on capital punishment, and leads a undergraduate seminar on the death penalty. He is a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Award, recognizing his work in fighting the death penalty, from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Julie A. Su '94 is Litigation Director at the non-profit Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California (APALC), an affiliate of the Washington D.C.-based Asian American Justice Center. She joined APALC as a Skadden Fellow in 1994, a prestigious fellowship given to 25 recent law graduates devoted to working in the public interest each year. Su was one of the leaders in fighting for the freedom of the Thai garment workers who were enslaved for years in an apartment complex in El Monte, California and served as lead counsel in a federal lawsuit against the garment manufacturers and retailers whose clothes they sewed. Since then, Su and APALC have litigated nearly a dozen corporate accountability lawsuits with garment workers. Su was one of six "national leaders" to appear in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's exhibit on sweatshops and is a co-founder of Sweatshop Watch.
Su also litigates to end discrimination and segregation in education and in the workplace. She has represented African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans in cases ranging from a challenge to UC Berkeley's admissions policy to Abercrombie & Fitch's hiring practices. Su has been widely recognized for using litigation combined with organizing efforts, community education, and broad-based policy proposals to effect change.
Su was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in 2001. She was also one of three women named by the Gruber Foundation in 2006 for its international Women's Rights award, and received the 1996 Reebok International Human Rights Award.
The Public Interest Lawyer's Toolkit: New Models of Advocacy
Moderator
Lani Guinier is the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at HLS. When she joined the faculty 1998, Guinier became the first black woman tenured professor in HLS history. Her appointment was another milestone in a distinguished legal career.
In 1993 Guinier was nominated by President Clinton to be the first black woman to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She had been a civil rights attorney for more than ten years and had served in the Civil Rights Division during the Carter Administration as special assistant to then Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days.
Guinier has written extensively in law review articles, books, and op-ed pieces about new ways of approaching old problems, including issues of affirmative action, the “testocracy,” gender equity, and race conscious political districting. In the 1980’s, Guinier headed the Legal Defense Fund’s Voting Rights program, litigating cases throughout the South.
Before joining the HLS faculty, Guinier was a tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania for 10 years. At Harvard, Prof. Guinier teaches courses on professional responsibility for public lawyers, law and the political process, and critical perspectives on race, gender, class and social change. Guinier has been recognized for her achievements with many awards and accolades, including: the Champion of Democracy Award from the National Women's Political Caucus; the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession; the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association of Affirmative Action; the Big Sisters Award; the Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence from Harvard Law School; and the Harvey Levin Teaching Award, given to her by her students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Jennifer M. Green '91 specializes in international human rights legal actions in U.S. courts and international bodies. She has represented plaintiffs in successful lawsuits against the Unocal corporation for forced labor in Burma, and against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, former Guatemalan Minister of Defense Hector Gramajo, Indonesian military official Sintong Panjaitan, Ethiopian police official Kelbessa Negewo, and former Haitian dictator Prosper Avril for rape and other acts of genocide and war crimes.
She is currently litigating cases against Titan and CACI, two contractors that provided translation and interrogation services in Iraq, including in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, and Royal Dutch Shell, for human rights abuses in Nigeria. Green has also worked on claims in international courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A particular focus has been litigation and other advocacy on international women's human rights. Green is also the author to several publications.
From 1992 to 1995, Green was the administrative director at the HLS Human Rights Program. She has also worked for a number of international human rights and humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International, the U.S. Catholic Conference Migration and Refugee Services, and the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration.
Penda D. Hair '78, Co-Director of the Advancement Project, is an aggressive racial justice advocate with 20 years of civil rights experience. Hair has a stellar record of victories both in and out of court. A leader in the national struggle to protect affirmative action, Hair developed crucial Fair Housing Act amendments, argued major civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and won the most extensive redistricting remedy ever imposed in a litigated voting rights suit.
She is the author of the Rockefeller Foundation's report on innovative civil rights strategies, Louder Than Words: Lawyers, Communities, and the Struggle for Justice (2001) and former Washington, DC office director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Hair also served as a clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Wilfred Feinberg and former Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. In 1998, The American Lawyer named Hair one of the top public interest attorneys under age 45.
Alan Jenkins '89 is Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Opportunity Agenda, a communications, research, and advocacy organization that builds the national will to expand opportunity in America. Before joining The Opportunity Agenda, Jenkins was Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation. Previously, he served as Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to that, Jenkins was Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination. His other positions have included Assistant Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Law Clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter, and Coordinator of the Access to Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Jenkins serves on the Board of Governors of the New School and the Board of Trustees of the Center for Community Change and the Legal Action Center, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society’s Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century.
Lori M. Wallach '90 is Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division. Public Citizen was founded in 1971 by Ralph Nader as a nonprofit citizen research, lobbying and litigation group. In 1995, Wallach launched Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division, which has become a leader in the global justice movement. Working closely with civil society, scholars, and activists in developing countries and with U.S. congressional, environmental, labor, and other allies, Wallach has played an important role in fostering the growing debate about implications of different models of trade and globalization on jobs, livelihoods and wages; the environment; public health and safety; equality and social justice and democratically accountable governance.
Wallach's work in "translating" arcane trade legalese—indeed, entire international commercial agreements—into relevant, accessible prose and connecting people's lived experiences with pacts' legal requirements, has helped empower more diverse participation in trade and globalization discussions.
Wallach has served as a trade commentator on CNN, ABC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and regularly appears on such programs as All Things Considered and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
In 1993, Wallach was a founder of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a national coalition of consumer, labor, environmental, family farm, religious, and civil rights groups representing over 11 million Americans, and now serves on its board. She also is a founding board member of the International Forum on Globalization, on whose board she also serves.
Hon. Jennifer M. Granholm '87, Governor of Michigan, has spent the past twenty years in a variety of public service and government positions. She began her career as a federal district clerk, served as a federal prosecutor, and was elected Michigan’s first female attorney general in 1998. In her time as Governor, Granholm has expanded health care coverage, improved the quality of public education and reduced the budget deficit. She serves as vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association and is chair of the Health and Human Services Committee of the National Governors Association.
In March 2007, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness honored Granholm with the “Every American Deserves A Home” award for her encouragement and leadership for Michigan’s statewide Campaign to End Homelessness. Granholm was also presented with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Award of Excellence, which recognizes leaders nationwide who exemplify professional and civic excellence and individuals who share Justice Marshall’s concern for civil rights and his passion for justice.
Daniel G. Mulhern '86, First Gentleman of Michigan, is champion for the cause of state volunteerism and community service, as chairman of the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC). He is an accomplished leadership coach and organizational development expert and is using those skills to guide the Office of Great Workplace Development, whose aim is to make the State government a "great place to do great work." He has similarly taken on the lead role in promoting the practices of Michigan's companies recognized as "great companies to work for."
Mulhern is a tireless advocate for kids. In addition to caring for their own three children, the Governor and First Gentleman have undertaken an enormous effort called Mentor Michigan that works to insure that all of Michigan's children have the same opportunity to be influenced and taught by a caring adult.
Mulhern is a prolific public speaker and has recently published a book called, "Everyday Leadership: Getting Results in Business, Politics and Life."
Career Development for Government Lawyers
Moderator
Philip B. Heymann '60 is James Barr Ames Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. From his first job as clerk to US Supreme Court Justice John Harlan to his post as Deputy US Attorney General (1993-1994), Heymann has spent much of his career in government. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has been Assistant US Attorney General in charge of the criminal division (1978-1981) and Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Justice Department, Acting Administrator of the State Department's Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Organizations, and Executive Assistant to the Undersecretary of State. In addition, he was a former Associate Prosecutor and Consultant to the Watergate Special Force. He is the author of "Preserving Liberty in an Age of Terror, and Terrorism, Freedom, and Security."
Shara L. Aranoff '88 is the Vice Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission. Vice Chairman Aranoff was nominated to the Commission by President George W. Bush on April 27, 2005, for the term ending December 16, 2012. Prior to her appointment, Aranoff was Senior International Trade Counsel on the Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where she was responsible for legislative and policy issues on international trade and investment, including the Trade Act of 2002; negotiations involving the World Trade Organization, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and numerous free trade agreements; trade remedy laws; Trade Adjustment Assistance; and trade-related environment and labor issues.
She also served as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Earlier in her career, Aranoff was an Associate at the Washington, DC, law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, specializing in international trade and public international law. Prior to that, she served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Herbert P. Wilkins, Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
David M. Karnovsky '82 has held a number of senior legal positions in New York City government. As an Assistant Corporation Counsel and Chief of the Legal Counsel Division of the New York City Law Department from 1987 to 1997, Karnovsky was responsible for providing advice to the Office of the Mayor, other elected officials, and City agencies on all aspects of municipal law, with a focus on the legal implications of proposed policy initiatives. His work included implementation of the reorganization of City government following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morris v. Board of Estimate; school reform legislation; and regulatory initiatives to address the influence of organized crime in the trade waste industry and at the Fulton Fish Market. From 1998 to 1999, Karnovsky was Special Counsel and Policy Adviser to the Deputy Mayor for Operations, providing legal advice on Mayoral initiatives and supervising agency operations.
Since 1999, Karnovsky has been General Counsel to the Department of City Planning/City Planning Commission, the agencies responsible for major land use, zoning, and planning decisions in New York City. In that capacity, he provides legal advice concerning major City-sponsored area-wide rezonings and economic development projects, developer-sponsored residential and commercial developments, and expansion projects for non-profit institutions.
Hon. Stuart J. Rabner '85 was sworn into office on June 29, 2007 after being nominated by Governor Jon S. Corzine and confirmed by the Senate. He is the eighth Chief Justice to lead the New Jersey Supreme Court since the 1947 Constitution. Following law school, Chief Justice Rabner was a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise. He later joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark in 1986.
After beginning his career as an assistant U.S. attorney, Chief Justice Rabner worked in a number of positions including first assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the terrorism unit. He was chief of the office's criminal division when he was named chief counsel to Governor Corzine in January 2006. He was named New Jersey attorney general in September 2006 and served in that position until his nomination to the Court.
Alberto Ruisanchez '01 is a trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, where he litigates voting discrimination cases in federal courts throughout the country. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2001, Mr. Ruisanchez clerked for Judge Juan Torruella of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Upon completing his clerkship, he was accepted to the Attorney General's Honors Program of the Department of Justice. Mr. Ruisanchez worked for two years in the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of the Civil Rights Division before transferring to the Voting Section. He is a 2002 Heyman Fellow.
Career Development for Nonprofit Lawyers
Moderator
Jodi I. Grant '93 has been, since 2005, Executive Director of the Afterschool Alliance, a non-profit public awareness and advocacy organization working to ensure that all children and youth have access to quality, affordable afterschool programs. As Executive Director, Grant oversees all aspects of the Afterschool Alliance’s work, setting its goals and strategies for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. In just two years, she has enlisted powerful new partners including The Atlantic Philanthropies, Bright House Networks, T-Mobile and the MetLife Foundation.
Prior to joining the Afterschool Alliance, Grant served as Director of Work and Family Programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families. In that position, she worked to protect and expand the Family & Medical Leave Act, and was a member of the team that successfully defended the law before the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, she worked on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the Senate Budget Committee and as Staff Director for a Senate Committee. Her legislative accomplishments include expanded support for the child tax credit, the Child Health Insurance Program and class size reduction. She also served as liaison to the National Governors’ Association, where she worked closely with Republican and Democratic governors. Grant currently serves on the Board of the Partners for Livable Communities and as a Trustee of America’s Promise.
Ira A. Burnim '77 is the Legal Director of the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C. Formerly, Burnim served as legal director of the Children's Defense Fund and senior attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Upon graduation from HLS he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Frank M. Johnson, Jr and then worked for one year as a Reggie Fellow doing impact litigation at Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. He has represented thousands of individuals in class action suits around the country seeking mental health and child welfare system reform. He is also active in Supreme Court cases; he spearheaded the disability community's efforts in Olmstead, represented the plaintiffs in Garrett, and played a coordinating role in Hason, Williams, Echezabal, Gorman, Frew, Lane, and Goodman.
He is recognized nationally for his expertise in policy and legal issues related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, community mental health care, Medicaid, and children's issues. He sits on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. He presents frequently at national conferences and consults with federal agencies, state policy makers, and advocates.
Working with Mental Disability Rights International, he has advised advocates and policy makers in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Albania, Romania, Ukraine, Japan, and Russia.
Nina Dastur ’97 is the Grassroots Policy Specialist at the Center for Community Change, where she works with groups around the country on a range of state and local policy issues. CCC strengthens, connects and mobilizes grassroots groups to enhance their leadership, voice, and power, in order to end the failed "on your own" mentality of the right and build a new politics based on community values. Dastur also helps to staff the Center's Housing Trust Fund Project, which operates as a clearinghouse of information on housing trust funds throughout the country and provides technical assistance to organizations and agencies working to create or implement these funds. She formerly created the DC Catalyst Project at the Center as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, providing technical policy assistance and developing innovative partnerships with grassroots groups in the District of Columbia to promote civic engagement and equitable development.
Prior to joining the Center, Dastur was a teaching fellow in the D.C. Division of the Federal Legislation Clinic, a poverty policy clinic that she helped to create at Georgetown University Law Center. She started her career as a legal services attorney, first at Community Legal Services, Inc. in Philadelphia, where she represented parents in dependency proceedings before the Family Court and examined issues relating to the intersection of welfare reform and child welfare. She later worked for the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, representing indigent clients in housing, family law, and public benefits matters, supervising junior attorneys, and coordinating the organization's law reform initiatives, with a specific focus on local welfare reform and affordable housing issues.
John M. Isaacson '73 founded Isaacson, Miller in 1982. He grew up in Maine and was carefully groomed to be a third generation Maine lawyer. Isaacson was diverted from his natural career in his twenties by unlikely success in academics, which took him to Dartmouth for a BA, to Oxford University on a Rhodes and to Harvard Law School. Following law school, he chose a career in public service. He launched his career as the assistant to the Secretary of Human Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was employed immediately as the state's recruiter for commissioners in the human services. Isaacson served three governors and five secretaries of human services over eight years, recruiting cabinet officers and commissioners.
In between recruiting assignments, he served as an Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services, as an Assistant Secretary of the Executive Office of Human Services, and as the Director of the Office for Children. By the end of his years of public service, Isaacson had benefited from working with a number of colleagues who had gone on to prestigious careers in higher education, academic medicine, public authorities, and national foundations. Over a two-year period in the early 1980s, they became the founding client base of the firm.
In his time with Isaacson, Miller, Isaacson has led searches in every part of the firm's practice. He has helped the firm to develop its cumulative knowledge of the craft of search—the missionary purposes of institutions, the disciplines of markets and the emotional and intellectual learnings that leaders acquire in a committed working life.
Nicky Sheats '82 is currently the director of the Center for the Urban Environment at the John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy of Thomas Edison Sate College where he has defined the primary mission of the Center as providing support for New Jersey's environmental justice community. He has also been a member of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, New Jersey's only statewide environmental organization that focuses solely on environmental justice issues. Among the issues he is working on are particulate matter air pollution, climate change, cumulative risk and impacts, the siting of schools on contaminated land, developing environmental justice legal strategies and increasing the capacity of the environmental justice community to address these and other issues.
The environmental justice community's stance on climate change, in particular, is gaining attention since it uniquely emphasizes reducing emissions of particulate matter along with carbon dioxide and is highly critical of carbon trading. Sheats is also pursuing scientific research with several academic partners.
Immediately after graduating from HLS, Sheats worked as a public interest attorney for almost eight years. He served as a law clerk for the Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (the equivalent of a state supreme court), a landlord-tenant and housing attorney at Camden Regional Legal Services, a public defender in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a legal instructor at a community legal education and college preparatory program in Harlem.
Career Transitions: Moving from Private to Public, Public to Private and Public to Academia
Moderator
Carolyn Stafford Stein '85 is an Attorney Advisor in the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising at HLS. Formerly, Stein served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office in Boston where she worked in the Public Corruption and Special Crimes Unit, the Economic Crimes Unit, and the Major Crimes Unit, and directed the Student Intern Program. Stein has also served as Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. As a Lecturer at HLS, she taught Government Lawyer and supervised students in clinical placements. She also worked on criminal justice and public safety issues for the Deval Patrick for Governor campaign.
A member of the Board of Directors of Acre Family Child Care in Lowell, Massachusetts, Stein is active in working for economic independence for women and high quality early childhood education in low-income and immigrant neighborhoods in Lowell. Her previous experience includes clerking for the Honorable Robert E. Keeton of the District of Massachusetts, and working as an associate with firms in San Francisco and Boston.
James E. Johnson '86, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton, focuses his practice on white collar criminal defense, internal investigations, corporate compliance and corporate crisis management in connection with internal investigations. Johnson has held several senior positions in the United States Department of the Treasury, including Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement. He oversaw the operations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, the Secret Service, the United States Customs Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Johnson also served as an Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he rose to Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. During his tenure in the Southern District, he assisted in the management of the Criminal Division while prosecuting a wide variety of criminal cases, and was detailed to the United States Department of the Treasury to serve on the White House Security Review.
Peggy Kuo '88 is Chief Hearing Officer at the New York Stock Exchange, where she adjudicates disciplinary matters involving violations of NYSE Rules and federal securities laws. Previously, she was counsel at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. From 1998 to 2002, Kuo was a trial attorney with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, prosecuting war criminals and formulating international criminal law and procedures. She also participated in the prosecution of former Yugoslavia president Slobodan Milosevic.
Kuo was an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, and Acting Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Criminal Section. Kuo clerked for Hon. Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Court of Appeals. In 1993-94, she was a German Chancellor Fellow in Berlin, through a program sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Kuo has taught, lectured and commented extensively, including at the Attorney General's Advocacy Institute and on National Public Radio. She was a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel during the trial of Saddam Hussein. She is active in the Federal Bar Council Inn of Court and the New York City Bar Association.
Nicholas D. Lundgren '00 is Counsel at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the City's primary vehicle for promoting economic growth, where he combines practice in complex real estate transactions, tax-exempt financing, municipal law and the law of tax-exempt organizations. Prior to joining NYCEDC, Lundgren was an associate in the respective real estate finance and development practice groups at Robinson & Cole, a mid-size Connecticut-based law firm, and Heller Ehrman, in its San Francisco office. While at Heller Ehrman, Lundgren represented various financial institutions and private equity interests in connection with affordable housing and charter school construction and tax-exempt bond financed projects (along with a wide array of commercial and pro bono real estate matters).
After graduating from law school, Lundgren was a Staff Attorney at the Community Law Offices of the Legal Aid Society of New York City where he helped establish the Community Development Project, a new practice group providing free transactional legal assistance to non-profit organizations, cooperatives and small businesses based in Upper Manhattan, with the support of an Equal Justice Works fellowship and a Kaufman fellowship.
While at HLS, Lundgren was a Senior Editor for the Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review and was active in community organizing initiatives, including organizing public housing tenants in the Greater Boston area.
Lundgren is on the board of directors of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, a state-wide organization dedicated to ensuring that all people have equal access to housing opportunities in Connecticut.
Verna L. Williams '88 is a Professor of law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Prior to her work in academia, Williams served as Vice President and Director of Educational Opportunities at the National Women’s Law Center, where she focused on issues of gender equity in education. During her time at the Center, Williams was lead counsel and successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which established that educational institutions have a duty to respond to and address complaints of student-to-student sexual harassment.
Professor Williams also clerked for the Hon. David S. Nelson, U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. Williams received the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2004.
Angela C. Wu '00 is Acting Executive Director and International Director, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. While at Harvard, she ran the Battered Women's Advocacy Project, edited the Civil Rights/ Civil Liberties Law Review and the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and worked for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division Appellate Section. She served in 2000 as a negotiations consultant on civil society issues to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.
In 2001, Wu obtained a D.E.S. in European Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles while on a Fulbright Fellowship in Brussels, Belgium. She clerked in the federal circuit courts of appeal for the Honorable William W. Schwarzer in San Francisco from 2002-2003. She was litigating hostile corporate takeovers and political asylum cases with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York when the Becket Fund called.
Since June 2007, Wu has served concurrently as acting Executive Director. In 2006 Relevant Magazine named Wu one of 9 young people "out to change the world."
Freedom in Cyberspace: The Intersection Between Human Rights and Law on the Internet
Moderator
John G. Palfrey, Jr. '01 is a Clinical Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Palfrey works with the faculty co-directors to set and carry out the Center's ambitious, public-spirited agenda and oversees the work of its crack team of staff, fellows and students. His work focuses on the potential of new technologies to strengthen democracies locally and around the world. In addition to his work at HLS, Palfrey taught a Freshman Seminar at Harvard College in Fall, and has taught at the Harvard Extension School for the past four years. In Spring of 2003, he co-led a Study Group at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government.
Palfrey came to the Berkman Center from the law firm Ropes & Gray, where he worked on intellectual property, Internet law, and private equity transactions. He is a co-founder of several technology companies. He also served as a Special Assistant at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Charles River Watershed Association, which works to clean up our local river, as well as the non-profit that runs Chris Lydon's and Mary McGrath's new program, Open Source. Outside of his Berkman Center work, he is a founder of RSS Investors, a private equity firm focused on new syndication technologies. He is active in Massachusetts politics.
James Cavallaro is Clinical Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Harvard Human Rights Program. After graduation from Harvard College in 1984, he spent several years working with Central American refugees on the U.S.–Mexico border and with rights groups in Chile challenging abuses by the Pinochet government. He studied at Boalt Hall (University of California at Berkeley School of Law), where he served on the California Law Review and was graduated with Order of the Coif Honors.
Cavallaro clerked for the Hon. Dolores K. Sloviter, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1993-1994). In 1994, he opened a joint office for Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in Rio de Janeiro, and served as director of the office, overseeing research, reporting and litigation against Brazil before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. In 1999, he founded the Global Justice Center, now a leading Brazilian human Rights NGO, which he directed until arriving at HLS in 2002.
Bonnie L. Docherty '01 is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and clinical instructor with the International Human Rights Clinic. She spent the previous five years at Human Rights Watch (HRW), for which she went on fact-finding missions to Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Darfur. Her HRW publications include "Fatally Flawed: Cluster Bombs and Their Use by the United States in Afghanistan," "Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq," (co-authored), and "Reading between the 'Red Lines': The Repression of Academic Freedom in Egyptian Universities."
Urs Gasser '03 is a Berkman Faculty Fellow and an associate professor of law at the University of St. Gallen, where he serves as the director of the Research Center for Information Law. Before joining the St. Gallen faculty, Gasser spent three years as a research and teaching fellow at the Berkman Center, where he was the lead fellow on the Digital Media Project. At the Berkman Center, Gasser initiated and chaired the Harvard-Yale-Cyberscholar Working Group.
Gasser has published and edited, respectively, six books and has written over 40 articles in books, law reviews, and professional journals. Recently, he edited a book on Information Quality Regulation, and co-wrote a Berkman Report on the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive’s provision on technological protection measures into member state laws. He frequently acts as a commentator on comparative law issues for the US and European media.
Stephanie K. Wang '02 is a resident fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, where her work is focused on the OpenNet Initiative.
Wang was formerly a Law Program Officer at Human Rights in China (HRIC), where she developed individual case advocacy on behalf of Chinese rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists, including media work, reports, and submissions to international and bilateral bodies. At HRIC, Wang also conducted research and analysis on topics in building Chinese rule of law, including criminal and criminal procedure law, freedom of expression and Internet regulation, and others.
In 2004-5, she worked in Beijing on advocacy and research promoting the rights of people with HIV/AIDS in China as a Henigson Fellow with the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. As part of this work, she conducted research on access to HIV antiretroviral drugs in China and compulsory licensing, domestic patent protections and the WTO TRIPS agreement. Also in Beijing, Wang completed a multi-disciplinary study on the evolving concept of discrimination in Chinese society for the Ford Foundation.
Moderator
Lloyd L. Weinreb '62 is the Dane Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. With academic interests in copyright law, criminal law, criminal procedure, intellectual property and legal and political philosophy, Professor Weinreb has written several casebooks and articles. He has taught at HLS since 1965. Prior to teaching at HLS, Weinreb taught as a visiting professor at Fordham University. Following graduation from Law School, Weinreb served as a clerk for Justice Harlan on the US Supreme Court and later as a criminal prosecutor.
Hon. Robert M. Bell '69, Chief Judge Robert M. Bell was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina on July 6, 1943 and reared in Baltimore. He attended Dunbar High School where, in 1960, twelve Dunbar High School students entered a downtown Baltimore restaurant, were refused service and were, subsequently, arrested and convicted for trespassing. One of the students, Robert M. Bell, led an appeal of the verdict in a landmark civil rights case, Bell v. Maryland, which eventually was argued before the United States Supreme Court and brought an end to de facto racial segregation in Maryland.
Bell began his legal career as an attorney at the firm of Piper and Marbury, then as a judge with twenty-five years service on the Maryland bench. Judge Bell came to the bench in 1975 as a judge of the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City. He next served as a judge for the Circuit Court for Baltimore City from 1980 until 1984, when he was appointed judge to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. In 1991, Judge Bell was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Maryland. With his October 23, 1996 designation as Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, Robert M. Bell became the only active judge in the State to have served at least four years on all four levels of Maryland's judiciary, and the first African-American to be named the state's chief jurist.
In addition to his many duties as chief judge, Judge Bell lectures frequently at schools and community groups. His involvement also includes serving as Chair of the Judicial Compensation Committee and the Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO), formerly the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Commission. He also chairs the Committee on Building Public Trust and Confidence in the Justice System. In addition, he is a member of the Judicial Education Committee and the State Bar Committee on Judicial Administration.
Chief Judge Bell has received numerous awards, including, among others: Legal Excellence Award for Advancement of Public Service Responsibility, Maryland Bar Foundation, 1999; Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access, Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, American Bar Association, 2000; Recipient of the University of Baltimore School of Law Students for Public Interest's first annual Robert M. Bell Award for Leadership in Public Service, 2004; MD Legal Services Corporation Medal for Access to Justice, 2004; The Community Mediation Program's Baltimore Peacemaker Award, 2005; MD Network Against Domestic Violence Special Recognition Award, 2005; U of MD System Frederick Douglass Award, 2006; and the Freedom Fight Award (Frederick Co. NAACP), 2006.
Hon. Fern A. Fisher '78 is an Administrative Judge of the Civil Court in New York. Justice Fern Fisher's career started in the Civil Court as a Legal Services attorney representing tenants in Manhattan Housing Court. Over the course of her career, her heart remained in the Civil Court where she has been the Administrative Judge since January, 1997. Justice Fisher served as Deputy Director of Harlem Legal Services, Inc. and as an Assistant Attorney General of the New York State Department of Law. For four years, she provided pro bono legal services to Harlem-based community organizations as a project director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. In 1989, she was appointed Judge of the Housing Part of the Civil Court, and later, in 1990, was elected to the Civil Court where she served as Deputy Supervising Judge. Justice Fisher was elected in 1993 to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. After serving in both the City and the Matrimonial Parts of Supreme Court, in December 1996 she was appointed Administrative Judge of the Civil Court.
Justice Fisher contributed the Views from the Bench in the Thomson-West practice guide, "Residential Landlord-Tenant Law in New York." She served as the host of a series of television shows on housing issues for Crosswalks, a public service cable show. Justice Fisher is a founding member of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association and is a member of Judicial Friends (an affiliate of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association), the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the New York County Lawyers Association. Justice Fisher also served as the Chair of the Housing Court (Judges) Disciplinary Committee and Chair of the Anti-Bias Committee of the New York County Supreme Court.
Hon. Neal E. Kravitz '83 is a judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, Judge Kravitz has presided over cases throughout the court’s Criminal, Civil, and Family Divisions. He currently hears the most serious criminal cases involving charges of murder, sexual assault, and child abuse. He is a member of the court’s Rules Committee, Landlord-Tenant Rules Advisory Subcommittee, and Standing Committee on Fairness and Access to the District of Columbia Courts.
Judge Kravitz has committed his entire legal career to serving the public interest. After clerking for Judge Henry A. Politz of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, he worked as a public defender for seven years – first as a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he represented indigent criminal defendants in the trial and appellate courts of the District of Columbia, and then as the executive director of the statewide public defender program in New Hampshire, where he managed a total of fifty lawyers in six offices throughout the state.
In addition to his work as a public defender, Judge Kravitz has held senior positions on the staffs of two investigative committees on Capitol Hill. From 1991 to 1993, he was Special Investigative Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, and from 1994 to 1997, he was Principal Deputy Democratic Special Counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee.
Judge Kravitz also has extensive experience in the field of civil rights litigation and enforcement. In between his two positions with the Senate, Judge Kravitz was a staff attorney at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, where he was co-lead counsel for six African-American Secret Service officers who won a landmark settlement with the Denny’s Restaurant chain on behalf of a nationwide class alleging a corporate practice of racial discrimination against African-American customers. Later, from 1997 until his appointment to the bench, Judge Kravitz served as Counsel to the head of the Civil Rights Division in the United States Department of Justice.
Judge Kravitz has been a member of the Board of Directors of the City Lights School in Northeast Washington since 1996 and a little league coach since 2006. He has maintained a close relationship with Harvard Law School as a frequent instructor at the Trial Advocacy Workshop and, in 1995-96, as a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow.
Hon. Mark L. Wolf '71 was appointed U.S. District Judge by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, and elevated to Chief Judge in 2006. Chief Judge Wolf's federal trial court experience of more than 20 years has made lasting contributions to the administration of justice in Massachusetts. Most notably, he worked for many years on organized crime cases, involving James "Whitey" Bulger, "Cadillac" Frank Salemme, and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi. His book-length rulings on the intricate relationship between the FBI and its informants has become the single definitive body of authority on the issue.
Prior to his appointment to the bench, Chief Judge Wolf served as Special Assistant to United States Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman, and then as Special Assistant to the legendary United States Attorney General Edward Levi from 1975 to 1977. In addition, he was Deputy United States Attorney and Chief of the Public Corruption Unit in Boston, and worked with William F. Weld. This interest in public corruption cases, and the personal impact of John William Ward, led Wolf, with the help of Stanley Miller, to found the Fellowship shortly after his appointment to the bench. In addition, Wolf has served as an Adjunct Professor at Boston College Law School, and as Lecturer at his alma mater Harvard Law School. Wolf completed his undergraduate degree from Yale University.
Chief Judge Wolf is highly involved in a number of charitable endeavors. For more than 20 years, he has served as chair of the John William Ward Public Service Fellowship, a program that allows students who have completed their junior or senior year at Boston Latin School to work for a summer in the office of an elected or appointed public servant in state government, municipal government, the judicial system, or the major press. Chief Judge Wolf also formed the Judge David S. Nelson Fellowship, a program that allows students from the Boston Public Schools the opportunity to work with district judges during a summer in the Federal Courthouse. Additionally, after stepping down from 15 years as chairman, Wolf remains active on the board of the Dr. Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, a program that allows students from health professional and law schools to engage in community service projects in health centers and community agencies in 11 states and at the Schweitzer Hospital in Africa.
Wolf worked with the city of Lowell, Massachusetts and the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association to establish the Future Stars Sports Leadership Summer Camp, which was created in response to the gang violence suffered in the large immigrant Cambodian population in the city. He has been awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from President Gerald Ford for his service in the resettlement of Indochinese refugees (1975), the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award (1984), and the Boston Bar Association's Citation for Judicial Excellence (2002 and 2007).
Volunteer and Paid Public Service Options for Senior and Parenting Lawyers
Moderator
Jenny Brody '81 is a solo practitioner handling pro bono and low bono (reduced fee) cases in the area of family law, including adoption, custody and domestic violence. She also serves as a court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem for children in the abuse and neglect system. In addition, Brody is the founder and Executive Director of the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC which provides support and resources to "off-ramped" and senior lawyers who handle pro bono cases.
Previously, Brody clerked for the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and worked for the United States Department of Justice and in private practice before spending fifteen years "off-ramped," with her three children.
Iris Sokolow Barnett '83 is a solo practitioner in Washington, DC, representing children in the foster care system, particularly those in need of special education services. Barnett also serves as a mediator in child protection cases brought before the DC Superior Court. After graduating from HLS, Barnett clerked for the Arizona Supreme Court, then served as an Assistant Attorney General in Alaska from 1984 to 1988, where she handled child welfare cases. After moving to Washington, DC, she worked for Sonosky, Chambers & Sachse and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) until 1990.
Raising her family of three has been a priority for Barnett. When her son was born in 1987, she became the first lawyer in the Alaska Attorney General's office to arrange a part-time practice. After her eldest daughter was born in 1990, she went "off ramp" for ten years to be home full-time with her family. She started her own practice in 2000 so she could pursue her commitment to serving children in need while maintaining a flexible family-friendly schedule.
Anthony F. Essaye '61 is Co-President of the International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) and a retired partner at Clifford Chance LLP. ISLP is a non profit organization that enlists experienced lawyers, both retired and still in practice, to work on programs in the developing world that advance the rule of law, human rights and equitable economic development. Essaye was born in London, England and came to the United States at the age of six after the outbreak of World War II. He received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and then served as an officer in the U.S. Infantry before enrolling at HLS. After practicing law in New York City, in early 1963 he joined the legal staff of the then newly formed Peace Corps, subsequently becoming Associate and then Deputy General Counsel.
In 1967, Essaye returned to private practice, joining the Washington office of Royall Koegel & Rogers, which thereafter became Rogers & Wells. He later served as the Managing Partner of the firm's Paris office, while practicing law as a Conseil Juridique. He then returned to Washington and acted as Managing Partner of the firm's Washington Office for the ensuing twenty years, while engaging in an international regulatory and corporate practice.
In 1972, Essaye assisted Sargent Shriver, the former Director of the Peace Corps, in the financial regulatory aspects of his Vice-Presidential campaign, and thereafter provided legal assistance to various Democratic presidential campaigns. He also served as Chairman of the National Lawyers Council of the Democratic National Committee, and later as Executive Director of the Clinton Legal Expense Trust, the entity that raised funds to offset the legal fees incurred by the Clintons during his Presidency. (more)
Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr. '60 is Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law. In a distinguished legal career spanning four decades, Schwarz has shown a unique ability to combine the highest level of private practice with a series of critically important public service assignments. He comes to the Center with a broad litigation record from Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he had been a partner since 1969.
Schwarz left the firm twice, once to serve as chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activity, and again to serve as Corporation Counsel under New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch. In 1989, he chaired the commission that revised New York City's charter. In addition to currently serving as senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, he chairs the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the Board of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Board of the Vera Institute of Justice.
After a year's clerkship with Judge J. Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, he worked one year for the Nigerian government as Assistant Commissioner for Law Revision under a Ford Foundation grant.
Ellen M. Semonoff '75 has served as the Assistant City Manager for Human Services for the City of Cambridge since 2004. Her responsibilities include leadership and day-to-day management of City's twenty two million dollar Human Services Department, including child care programs, community and youth programs, substance abuse programs, services for homeless residents, workforce development programs, recreation programs, fuel assistance and summer nutrition programs, services to and programs for seniors and disabled residents. Together with other city leaders, she plays a major role in the citywide Agenda for Children initiative to enhance literacy and out of school time programs for children.
From 1996 until 2003, Semonoff served as Deputy Director of the Department and before that served as Assistant to the City Manager from 1991-1995 where she was responsible for advising the City Manager and Deputy City Manager on policy and program issues. In that capacity, she helped lead the City's legislative and programmatic response to the end of rent control and the City's negotiations with its City Hospital resulting in the establishment of a separate public health and hospital authority.
From 1984 until 1990, Semonoff was the Chair of the Cambridge Rent Control Board, a volunteer position she held while being at home with her young children. Prior to taking that position, she spent several years practicing law in Washington D.C. and then in Boston. She also spent several years just after graduating from Law School working for the government in Washington D.C., serving as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph A. Califano and prior to that as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Moderator
Howard A. Learner '80 is an experienced attorney serving as the President and Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Mr. Learner is responsible for the overall strategic policy direction, development and leadership of this public interest organization. Before founding ELPC, he was the General Counsel of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, a public interest law center, specializing in complex civil litigation and policy development. Mr. Learner is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University Law School, teaching an advanced environmental law seminar.
Roger S. Ballentine '88 is the President of Green Strategies Inc., where he assists clients in the energy and environmental arena with domestic and international public policy matters, investment guidance in the "clean tech" marketplace, marketing and business development strategies, sustainability, and capital formation. He is also Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School teaching in the area of energy and climate policy and is a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington D.C.
Ballentine previously was a senior member of the White House staff, serving President Bill Clinton as Chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force and Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Initiatives. Prior to being named Deputy Assistant to the President, Ballentine was Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, where he focused on energy and environmental issues. He has published a number of papers, articles and opinion pieces in nationally and internationally-recognized publications and has been a frequent television and radio commentator.
He serves on the Board of Directors of Environmental Power Corporation (NASDQ:EPG) and on the Advisory Boards of Stratos Renewables Corporation, Pure Biofuels Corporation and Safe Renewables Corporation. Ballentine was a founding Board Member of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and serves on the Boards of the Biomass Energy Resource Center and the International Fund for China's Environment.
Dale S. Bryk '93 is a Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she directs the organization's state climate policy work. Her expertise is in the area of state energy and climate policy, including cap-and-trade design, utility regulation, energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, global warming pollution registries, green building and smart growth. Bryk joined NRDC in 1997, prior to which she practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. Since 2002, she has also taught the Environmental Law Clinic at Yale Law School.
Douglas I. Foy '73 is a founding partner of Serrafix, a company devoted to sustainable business practices and the development of social enterprises. Prior to launching Serrafix in 2006, Foy served as the first Secretary of Commonwealth Development in the administration of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. In leading this "super-Secretariat," Foy oversaw the agencies of Transportation, Housing, Environment, and Energy, with combined annual capital budgets of $5 billion, operating budgets of $500 million, and a total workforce of more than 11,000. Before his service in the Romney administration, Foy served for 25 years as the President of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England's premier environmental advocacy organization.
Among other awards, Foy has received the President's Environmental and Conservation Challenge Award, the country's highest conservation award, and the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson Center, the national memorial to President Wilson. Foy, a member of the 1968 USA Olympic Rowing Team and the 1969 USA National Rowing Team, graduated from Princeton University as a University Scholar in engineering and physics, attended Cambridge University in England as a Churchill Scholar in geophysics.
Predatory Lending
Moderator
Roger Bertling is a Clinical Instructor/ Attorney in the Predatory Lending/ Consumer Unit of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center and a Lecturer on Law at HLS. He supervises students negotiating and litigating predatory mortgage, bankruptcy, and consumer cases. He teaches a Predatory Lending Workshop and co-teaches Consumer Law at HLS. Bertling has given numerous presentations to national and state wide groups on mortgage and consumer issues.
Prior to his work at the Legal Services Center, Bertling was an attorney in Legal Services in Missouri and Massachusetts, specializing in consumer cases, elder cases and complex litigation. His work included an emphasis on mortgage problems and foreclosures. Bertling received his B.A. at the University of Northern Iowa and his J.D. at the University of Iowa.
Eric I. Halperin '98 is Director of the Center Responsible Lending's Washington, DC office. CRL is a research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting borrowers from abusive lending practices. At CRL, Halperin directs the litigation program and CRL's advocacy on various policy issues. Prior to coming to CRL, he was a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, working primarily on litigation to enforce the Fair Housing Act. Before attending law school, Halperin worked at Jobs for Homeless People, a community-based organization that provides employment training and transitional housing to homeless people in Washington, DC.
The Center for Responsible Lending is an affiliate of Self-Help, a community development lender that has provided more than $5 billion in financing to over 55,000 low-wealth families, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations across the country in the past 26 years.
Stuart T. Rossman '78 is a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and has served as its Director of Litigation since 1999. NCLC is a 38 year old national non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to the representation of low income and elderly consumers. He is the co-editor of the 6th Edition of the NCLC Consumer Class Actions manual and coordinates NCLC’s Consumer Class Action Symposium.
After 13 years of private trial practice in Boston, Rossman served as Chief of the Trial Division and Chief of the Business and Labor Protection Bureau at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. As founding chairman of the Boston Bar Association (BBA) Young Lawyers Section he coauthored and edited a handbook on the rights of the homeless in Massachusetts, which received the American Bar Association's Young Lawyer's Division Award of Achievement in 1989. Rossman is the former Chairman of the Volunteer Lawyers Project, Massachusetts' largest pro bono legal referral service program. Since 1992 he has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the Northeastern University School of Law where he teaches courses in Civil Trial Advocacy. He also is a member of the adjunct faculty at the Suffolk University School of Law.
In 2004, Rossman and his co-counsel were recognized as Finalists for Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice for their contribution to the public interest through their work on the case of Coleman v. General Motors Acceptance Corporation. He also was awarded the 2005 Thurgood Marshall Award by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and its Wall Street Project. Rossman currently serves as the President of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
Henry J. Sommer '74 is Supervising Attorney at the pro bono Consumer Bankruptcy Assistance Project in Philadelphia. He has litigated many major cases involving bankruptcy, consumer law, civil rights and other issues. Previously, he was the head of the Consumer Law Project at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, where he worked for over 21 years. Sommer has also served as a Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Sommer is Editor in Chief of Collier on Bankruptcy and the entire Collier line of bankruptcy publications. He is the author of several books as well as numerous articles on bankruptcy law. He is the co-author of Collier Family Law and the Bankruptcy Code (Matthew Bender 1991). He is also a contributing author to the Matthew Bender treatise on Debtor-Creditor Law.
Sommer is President of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), a former member of the Federal Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules (appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) and a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference. He is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, a member of the American Law Institute, and a former member of the Federal Reserve Board Consumer Advisory Council. He is also a former Chairman of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference, and Vice President of the Coalition for Consumer Bankruptcy Debtor Education.
He has been asked to testify many times before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, on bankruptcy and consumer law issues. He has served on the faculty of numerous continuing legal education programs including those presented by the Federal Judicial Center, NYU Law School, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the Southeastern Bankruptcy Law Institute, the Executive Office of U.S. Trustees, NACBA, the ABA Family Law Section, ALI-ABA and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. Mr. Sommer was the first recipient of the National Consumer Law Center's Vern Countryman Consumer Law Award.
Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, is an expert on bankruptcy and consumer debt. She is the author of several books including "All Your Worth," and "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Father Are Going Broke," as well as three leading casebooks. Warren directed the National Bankruptcy Review Commissions study of federal bankruptcy laws and drafted its report to Congress. Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Professor Warren to the Judicial Education Committee of the Federal Judicial Center from 1990 to 1999. The National Law Journal named her one of the Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers in America. Harvard students voted her the Sacks and Freund Award for teaching excellence.
Prior to teaching at Harvard, Professor Warren was the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and also taught at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan and Rutgers Law School.
The Quest for International Justice
Moderator
Larry D. Johnson '70 is the Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, United Nations. Johnson formerly served as the Legal Adviser of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Chef de Cabinet, Office of the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He joined the United Nations Secretariat in 1971 as an Assistant Legal Officer in the Codification Division of the Office of Legal Affairs and last served at Headquarters as Principal Legal Officer in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Office of Legal Affairs.
Currently, Johnson is Professor of Global Affairs at New York University's Center for Global Affairs and Visiting Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Previously, he was Visiting Professor of International Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law and at the New England School of Law. Johnson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Society of International Law and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Sandra L. Babcock '91 is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the Clinical Director of the Center for International Human Rights. She has taught courses on international law and the death penalty at the University of Amsterdam and served as an adjunct law professor at South Texas College of Law. Before joining the law school faculty, she served as director of the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program, a program funded by the Mexican Foreign Ministry to assist Mexican nationals facing capital punishment in the United States. For her work, she was awarded the Aguila Azteca, the highest honor bestowed by the government of Mexico upon citizens of foreign countries, in 2003.
Mark C. Fleming '97 is a Partner in the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Fleming's practice focuses on complex civil litigation, with particular emphasis on appellate and Supreme Court litigation. Fleming's pro bono practice includes the representation of six Bosnian-Algerian men wrongfully detained at Guantanamo Bay, which was recently argued in the Supreme Court (Boumediene v. Bush). They have been held for over six years without criminal charge and without fair process, contending that they are entitled to challenge their wrongful imprisonment through habeas corpus. He is also pro bono counsel in an immigration case pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Fleming is an active member of the Boston Bar Association, where he is co-chair of the International Law Section and a member of the Amicus Committee. In May 2007, Boston Magazine recognized Fleming as a "Massachusetts Super Lawyers' Rising Star" in the field of appellate litigation.
Before joining WilmerHale, Fleming served as a law clerk to the Honorable David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States (2002-2003). He has also served as law clerk to the Honorable Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1997-1998), law clerk to the Honorable John C. Major of the Supreme Court of Canada (1999-2000), and associate legal officer in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands (2003-2004).
Judge O-Gon Kwon '85 is serving his second term as one of the permanent judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Before joining the Tribunal in 2001, he served in the judiciary of the Republic of Korea for 22 years as a judge in various courts, including the Seoul District Court and Taegu High Court. As a member of Trial Chamber II of the Tribunal, Judge Kwon currently sits on the bench hearing the case of Prosecutor v. Popović et al., in which seven Bosnian Serbs are accused of involvement in crimes following the July 1995 fall of the Srebrenica enclave.
He is also a member of the Referral Bench, which determines whether certain cases pending before the Tribunal are suitable to be referred for trial in the national courts of a state, instead of being tried at the Tribunal. In addition, he is a member of the Tribunal's Rules Committee, which is charged with proposing additions and modifications to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Previously, Judge Kwon sat on the bench hearing the trial of Slobodan Milošević and was also involved in several pre-trial proceedings, contempt trials and sentencing judgments.
Kenneth R. Scott '79 is a senior prosecutor in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He investigates and prosecutes crimes related to genocide, breaches of the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity. Focusing on Bosnian Croat atrocities, in seven and a half years Scott has won convictions in two trials and landed indictments in a third which constitute significant accomplishments in a system where trials commonly last two years due to four-hour court days and translation delays. At Harvard, Scott spent many hours working for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, an experience that inspired him to pursue a career in the public sector. Prior to his work at The Hague, Scott served for 12 years as a federal prosecutor.
Moderator
Charles J. Ogletree '78 is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Director of Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Professor Ogletree is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. He has examined these issues not only in the classroom, on the Internet and in the pages of prestigious law journals, but also in the everyday world of the public defender in the courtroom and in public television forums where these issues can be dramatically revealed.
Ogletree began his career as a staff attorney in the District of Columbia Public Defender Service. He quickly rose through the ranks serving as Training Director, Trial Chief, and Deputy Director of the Service before entering private practice in 1985 in the law firm of Jessamy, Fort & Ogletree. He is also the author of several prominent books and frequently contributes to the Harvard Law Review.
In 2003, Ogletree was selected by Savoy Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Blacks in America and by Black Enterprise Magazine, as one of the legal legends among America’s top black lawyers. In 2002, he received the National Bar Association’s prestigious Equal Justice Award. He has received numerous other awards for his achievements in the law.
Ogletree also serves as the Co-Chair of the Reparations Coordinating Committee, a group of lawyers and other experts researching a lawsuit based upon a claim of reparations for descendants of African slaves, along with Randall Robinson, co-author of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. He has a long record of commitment and service to public schools and higher education. Ogletree continues to serve as the Chairman of the Board of the B.E.L.L. Foundation, which is committed to educating minority children in after school programs in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. In addition, Professor Ogletree served as one of the founding members and trustee of the Benjamin Banneker Charter School in Cambridge, a school that provides educational opportunities in math, science and technology to minority children in a public school setting. Professor Ogletree attended public schools in his hometown of Merced, California, and has set up a scholarship fund there that now annually provides support for needy students who want to pursue higher education.
Victor A. Bolden '89 is the General Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (ALDF). In this capacity, he coordinates the organization's affirmative action agenda, manages its internal legal matters, provides guidance on the organization's litigation, and oversees the administration of LDF's two offices. Before assuming this position, Bolden was Counsel with the law firm of Wiggin and Dana LLP in New Haven, Connecticut. There, he represented clients in a wide variety of complex civil litigation matters, including cases involving legislative reapportionment and affirmative action. In 2003, for example, he submitted an amicus curiae brief in both Grutterv. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger on behalf of the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio as well as the National Conference of Black Mayors.
Before coming to Wiggin and Dana, Bolden served as an Assistant Counsel with LDF from 1994 to 2000, litigating cases in the areas of affirmative action, school desegregation, housing discrimination, employment discrimination and voting rights at both the trial and appellate level. He also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation's (ACLU) National Legal Department, first as a Marvin Karpatkin Fellow and then, as a Staff Attorney, from 1989 to 1994. From 1992 to 2000, Bolden was an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School and taught a constitutional law seminar on the issues of race and poverty. He also has taught constitutional law seminars in South Africa and Brazil.
Bolden is active in both national and local bar activities as well as other civic organizations. He is a Co-Chair of the ABA Section of Litigation's Trial Practice Committee. In the past, he has served on that Section's Federal Practice Task Force. He recently served as the Assistant Treasurer of the New Haven County Bar Association. Bolden also is a past Commissioner of the City of New Haven's Commission on Equal Opportunities and the past Chair of the Board of the International Center of New Haven.
Dennis Parker '80, joined the ACLU as the Director of the Racial Justice Project in June of 2006. Prior to joining the ACLU, Parker was the Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau in the Office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. He spent 14 years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. Parker has also worked with the New York Legal Aid Society. He also teaches Race, Poverty and Constitutional Law at Columbia University’s School Law Institute.
Elizabeth S. Westfall '96 is the Deputy Director of the Voter Protection Program at Advancement Project, a civil rights organization in Washington, DC. She litigates voting rights cases on behalf of voters and organizations that conduct voter registration, including Florida State Conference of the NAACP v. Browning (N.D. Fla. 2007), ACORN v. Cox (N.D. Ga. 2006), and Diaz v. Browning (S.D. Fla 2004). She also engages in advocacy with election officials on various voter registration and other election administration issues. Westfall joined the Advancement Project after several years in private practice where she litigated fair housing, employment, and public accommodation discrimination cases.
Westfall also served as a staff attorney with the Fair Housing Project of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Prior to joining the Washington Lawyers' Committee, Westfall was an associate with the law firm previously known as Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC.
Moderator
Jack L. Goldsmith is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. In 2002 Goldsmith joined the Bush administration working first in the General Counsel's office at the Pentagon and then serving as assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. In the summer of 2004, Goldsmith left the Justice Department to join
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
as a visiting scholar and to teach at HLS. At AEI, Goldsmith worked on international law, sovereignty, and intelligence reform. He formerly served as special counsel to the general counsel, Department of Defense, professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and as associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1992, Professor Goldsmith served as legal assistant to Judge George Aldrich, of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Netherlands. Goldsmith clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, and for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Deborah N. Pearlstein '98 joined the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 2007 as an Associate Research Scholar in the Law and Public Affairs Program. An expert in U.S. constitutional law, Pearlstein's work focuses on U.S. counterterrorism and national security policies, executive power, and the role of the courts. She has published numerous popular and academic writings on the Constitution, executive power, and national security. Her most recent articles consider the role of the military as a constraint on executive power, and the Constitution and changing executive competencies in the post-Cold War world.
From 2003-2006, Pearlstein served as the founding director of the Law and Security Program at Human Rights First, where she led the organization’s efforts in research, litigation and advocacy surrounding U.S. detention and interrogation operations. Among other projects, Pearlstein led the organization's first monitoring mission to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and co-authored a series of reports on the human rights impact of U.S. national security policy, including a landmark report on U.S. secret detention facilities, Behind the Wire. She also worked closely with members of the military and intelligence communities in launching a series of off-the-record workshops to address key policy challenges in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. A frequent public speaker on security-related topics in U.S. constitutional law, Pearlstein has testified before Congress on the human rights impacts of U.S. detention and interrogation operations.
Before embarking on a career in law, Pearlstein served in the White House as a Senior Editor and Speechwriter for President Clinton. She also served as a teaching fellow in Harvard College and in the Law School. Following law school, Pearlstein clerked for Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, then for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Steve R. Shapiro '75 is the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Shapiro has been the ACLU’s Legal Director since 1993, and served as Associate Legal Director from 1987-1993. During that time, he has appeared as counsel or co-counsel on more than 200 ACLU briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court. Shapiro is also an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Columbia Law School, and a frequent speaker and writer on civil liberties issues.
After graduating from law school and spending one year as law clerk to Judge J. Edward Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Shapiro joined the New York Civil Liberties Union in 1976. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights First and the Policy Committee of Human Rights Watch, as well as the Advisory Committees of the U.S. Program and Asia Program of Human Rights Watch.
M. Edward Whelan III '85 is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He directs EPPC's program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process. As a contributor to National Review Online's Bench Memos blog on judicial nominations, he was a leading commentator on the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government.
From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and Departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Whelan also previously worked as Senior Vice President and Counselor to the General Counsel for Verizon Corp. and as a lawyer in private practice.
Dinner Keynote Speaker
Bryan Stevenson '85, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative and Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, has won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color in the criminal justice system. Since graduating from Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government in 1985, he has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice. Stevenson's work on behalf of condemned prisoners has attracted national recognition and acclaim from the Washington Post, the New York Times, People Magazine, LIFE Magazine and several national television programs including Nightline and 60 Minutes.
Stevenson is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the MacArthur Foundation's "Genius Award," the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty, and the American Bar Association's Wisdom Award for Public Service. In 1996, the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers named him Public Interest Lawyer of the Year. He has also received honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Washington University and Eastern University.
A Conversation with Dean Elena Kagan '86
Elena Kagan '86, the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law, has served as Dean of Harvard Law School since July 1, 2003. Kagan came to Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan has taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure and a seminar on the law surrounding the presidency. From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served in the White House, first as Associate Counsel to the President (1995-96) and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1997-99). In those positions she played a key role in the executive branch's formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in areas ranging from education to crime to public health.
A leading scholar of administrative law, Kagan's recent work focuses on the role of the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law. Her 2001 Harvard Law Review article, "Presidential Administration," was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press. Kagan has also written on a range of First Amendment issues, including the role of governmental motive in First Amendment doctrine, and the interplay of libel law and the First Amendment. Her works in progress include a new casebook on administrative law.
Kagan launched her scholarly career at the University of Chicago Law School, where she became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995. In 1993, Kagan received the graduating students' award for teaching excellence.
Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987. The next year she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. She then worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1989 to 1991.
Kagan received her bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton in 1981. She attended Worcester College, Oxford, as Princeton's Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude in 1986.
Saturday, March 15
Career Development for the International Lawyers
Moderator
Henry J. Steiner '55, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law Emeritus, Harvard Law School, is an expert on international human rights and worked closely with many students who have followed public interest careers. He founded the school's Human Rights Program in 1984 and directed it for 21 years. He was also chair of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies. Steiner gave lectures and courses on human rights topics in over 25 countries. He has written on a wide range of human rights topics, including political participation, rights and democracy, minority regimes, institutions, and human rights discourse. His co-authored book, "International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals," has been used in many countries for university courses and as a reference for teachers and advocates. He now continues his human rights work and engages in digital photography.
Raymond A. Atuguba '04 is Co-founder and Co-chair of the Legal Resources Centre-Ghana, a human rights, law and development organization. Dr. Atuguba currently teaches Conflict of Laws, Administrative Law, Human Rights, and Law and Development at the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana. He has published a number of articles and research reports, most of them relating to the intersection of law, policy, human rights and development.
In addition to his law degree, Dr. Atuguba also has a Practice Certificate as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana and has handled many cases in human rights and public interest litigation.
Dr. Atuguba has worked with several international organizations and has consulted extensively on legal, human rights and development issues for international and national organizations, including the Government of Ghana, the Government of Liberia, the World Bank, DFID, USAID, GTZ, International Council on Human Rights Policy, etc. He has also facilitated over 150 training workshops and seminars nationally and internationally on law, human rights and development.
James A. Goldston '87 is Senior Trial Attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he conducts investigations and prosecutions of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Goldston is on leave for one year from his position as Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based global program that promotes rights-based law reform and the development of legal capacity worldwide.
Previously, as Legal Director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center, Goldston spearheaded the development of ground-breaking civil rights litigation before the European Court of Human Rights, United Nations treaty bodies, and domestic courts in 15 European countries. Goldston’s cases included the first-ever judgment of the European Court of Human Rights holding that indirect discrimination—absent proof of intent to discriminate—is a violation of international law.
In 1996, Goldston served as Director General for Human Rights of the Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where he oversaw monitoring, reporting and individual protection activities nationwide. For five years, Goldston was a prosecutor in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He specialized in the prosecution of organized crime.
Goldston began his career documenting abuses for Human Rights Watch. He has written widely on issues of human rights and racial discrimination, and has engaged in law reform fieldwork and investigated rights abuses in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Goldston has taught at Columbia Law School and the Central European University in Budapest.
Sarah E. Prosser '02 is an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State. She has worked in the Legal Adviser's office for human rights and refugee law, and she is currently in the Legal Adviser's office for East and South Asian Affairs. She has worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Kazakhstan and was a volunteer for the U.S. Peace Corps in Uzbekistan. Prosser is a Heyman Fellow.
Fatemeh Ziai '90 is Chief of the Integrated Training Service in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations. Previously she served as Acting Chief of the Peacekeeping Best Practices Section at the United Nations, and as Special Assistant to the Chef de Cabinet in the Executive Office of the Secretary General for almost five years.
From November 2001–July 2002, she served as a member of the UN team at the Bonn Peace talks and was Special Assistant to the Secretary General's Special Representative for Afghanistan in Kabul. From 1996–1998, she was a Legal Adviser to the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH). Prior to joining the United Nations, she was "Counsel" at Human Rights Watch from 1993–1996, and worked as an attorney at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton from 1990–1993.
Moderator
Deborah E. Anker '84 is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She is the author of the leading treatise, Law of Asylum in the United States, and has drafted ground-breaking guidelines and amicus curiae briefs. Much of her work has focused on gender and gender violence as a basis for asylum, and she is currently involved in questions of asylum eligibility and trafficking, disability status, religious beliefs and family membership.
Most recently Anker has been researching exclusion from refugee status for Burmese, Nepalese and Colombian refugees. She speaks regularly at conferences as well as programs for continuing education and training of judges and lawyers, including most recently for the International Association of Refugee Law Judges. Anker comes from a family with a proud public service tradition and really loves being actively involved in a combination of practice, teaching and scholarship.
Lucas E. Guttentag '78 is the founding national director of the Immigrants' Rights Project (IRP) of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation. He established the project at the ACLU National Office in New York and later opened the California Office. Guttentag has argued and won major cases in the United States Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals throughout the country. Under his leadership, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project has become the country's largest program of national impact litigation dedicated to enforcing and expanding the constitutional and civil rights of immigrants.
Guttentag has testified before Congress, published numerous articles on immigrants' rights, and regularly speaks on immigration law and civil liberties. His has been honored as one of country's 25 leading immigration advocates of the last twenty-five years by the National Immigration Forum in Washington DC, selected as one of California's Top 100 Lawyers by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, recognized as appellate "Lawyer of the Year" by California Lawyer magazine, named a "Human Rights Hero" by the Human Rights journal of the American Bar Association, elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and recognized by many national and local organizations for his litigation and leadership.
Guttentag also teaches courses on the constitutional rights of immigrants at Stanford Law School and U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall. After law school, he clerked for U.S. district judge William Wayne Justice in Texas, worked at the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, and taught at Columbia Law School in New York.
Jennifer J. Rosenbaum '02 is a staff attorney for the Immigrant Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Center's Immigrant Justice Project represents low-income immigrant workers in litigation across the Southeastern United States. Rosenbaum has coordinated the Center's post-Katrina advocacy on behalf of low-wage workers in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Before joining the legal staff at the Immigrant Justice Project, Rosenbaum served as a Skadden Fellow at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid representing farmworkers and clerked for the Hon. Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr., of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee.
Gloria M. Valencia-Weber '86 is Regents Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She was a C. Clyde Ferguson Public Interest Law Fellow and held Federal Judicial Clerkships for the Western District of Oklahoma District Court and for the Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Valencia-Weber established and directed the first two Indian Law Certificate Programs in the ABA accredited law schools. Her teaching and research focus is on the most important right of indigenous nations in the U.S.A, their sovereignty.
Also a professor of immigration law, the two interests intersect in her current research on contemporary immigration law and practice in the post "9/11" period. The security policies and practices increasingly interfere with the transnational indigenous sovereigns, the cross border tribes, who encounter new difficulties at the Mexican and Canadian borders. For the approximately 25 tribal nations, the procedural, substantive, and physical barriers are violative of Jay Treaty rights and other laws.
How do you teach integrity: What role should law schools play?
Moderator
Jamienne S. Studley '75 is President of Public Advocates Inc., a non-profit advocacy group that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing and transit equity. She served as President, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, and deputy and acting general counsel to the U.S. Department of Education in the Clinton Administration. Earlier she was Associate Dean and Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, where she helped establish the loan forgiveness program for graduates in public service, and Executive Director of the National Association for Law Placement, spearheading its race, gender and sexual orientation equity programs.
A graduate of Barnard College (1972 magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, honors in American Studies) and Harvard Law School, where she was president of the student-faculty government, Studley was on the American Bar Association Commissions on Women in the Profession and on Loan Forgiveness and Repayment. She serves on the San Francisco Ethics Commission; the boards of the Association of American Colleges & Universities, The Urban School, American Craft Council, and San Francisco Museum of Craft & Design; Harvard Law School Advisory Committee on the 2008 Celebration of Public Interest; and chaired the Equal Justice Works E-Guide project advisory committee.
David Hall '85 served as dean of the Northeastern University School of Law from 1993 until he was named provost of Northeastern University in 1998. He returned to the law school faculty in 2003. Professor Hall teaches courses in Contracts, Racism and American Law, and Professional Ethics; his areas of specialization are civil rights, legal education, and social justice. He lectures nationally and writes on issues of social justice, diversity, affirmative action, and equal justice and educational transformation. His current research focuses on the law and spirituality, the subject of his book, The Spiritual Revitalization of the Legal Profession: A Search for Sacred Rivers.
Professor Hall serves on the boards of directors of numerous organizations, including the Legal Services Corporation, an 11-member board to which he was appointed by President Bush in 2003. He received the National Conference of Community and Justice Humanitarian Award in 1999 and has been honored by the Boston Bar Association and other community-based organizations. In 1997, he was named Outstanding Dean of the Year by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers. He received the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award in 1993.
David A. Hoffman '84 is the founding partner of Boston Law Collaborative, LLC, where he serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and attorney. He is the former chair of the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution, co-founder of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council, and past president of the New England chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution. He has served as an Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University School of Law (teaching ADR and Negotiation) and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School (teaching Advanced Mediation and Family Law Practice. He is the co-editor of Bringing Peace into the Room: How the Personal Qualities of the Mediator Impact the Process of Conflict Resolution, and co-author of Massachusetts Alternative Dispute Resolution.
Jeffrey W. Purcell '84 is a Senior Attorney in the Housing Unit for Greater Boston Legal Services, where he has practiced since 1986 representing tenant groups, community groups and tenants in preserving affordable housing. He has extensive litigation experience before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, including in the 1997 case Purcell v. District Attorney for Suffolk District. The case arose from a situation in which Purcell disclosed to law enforcement officials his client's intent to burn down a 20-unit apartment building because he faced impending eviction. Purcell's disclosure successfully thwarted his client's well-prepared plan for arson. However, Purcell refused to testify against his client in the subsequent trial for attempted arson, despite a subpoena to do so from the Suffolk County District Attorney. The state high court upheld Purcell's position, establishing precedent that attorneys cannot be compelled to testify against their clients absent the "crime-fraud" exception to attorney-client privilege. Purcell has given numerous presentations in professional responsibility classes at HLS and other law schools regarding this case.
Purcell also successfully argued to the SJC that tenants receiving a public subsidy are entitled to breach of warranty of habitability damages based on the market rent rather than the portion of the rent the tenants paid, and he established the precedent that tenants are entitled to rent control eviction protection after foreclosure by a bank. Purcell has served as lead counsel in more than 25 trials. Prior to joining Greater Boston Legal Services, he was a housing attorney with Southeastern Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation in Brockton, Mass., and a housing attorney with Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services in Cambridge. He is the author of several legal articles and currently is writing a biography of James Otis, the Boston attorney who argued the case against "writs of assistance" in 1761, which John Adams claimed was the "spark of the revolution."
Purcell is the recipient of numerous professional awards including the GBLS Dow-Gardiner-Landrum Award in 2007 for outstanding legal advocacy at GBLS, and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy's Master Advocate Designation. At HLS, he was a member of the Legal Aid Bureau, where he successfully certified a class of 1,000 tenants at a federally subsidized housing project in Cambridge and obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting specified improper eviction practices.
Henry (Hank) J. Shea '81 is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and a Fellow at the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions. He administers a unique ethics program that he founded, which involves joint presentations with more than a dozen felons, most of whom he prosecuted, at law schools, business schools, business conferences, and other locations. He also teaches a course in ethical leadership and speaks frequently on ethics and how to best prevent white-collar crime.
Shea served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota for 18 years, where he prosecuted corporate and other economic crimes. He now serves as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for that office. During his tenure, the U.S. Attorney's Office collected more than $45 million in restitution, fines and forfeitures from crimes that he prosecuted.
Shea is the recipient of numerous Department of Justice awards, and in 2007 he received the Minnesota State Bar Association Professional Excellent Award for outstanding efforts to advance the legal profession and the administration of justice.
Keeping the Flame Alive: Working on the Front Lines and Preventing Burnout
Moderator
Chip Gray (John. C.) '67 is the Project Director of South Brooklyn Legal Services. Gray was a graduate fellow in the Hays Civil Liberties Law Program and New York University Law School from 1967 to 1968. He has been a Legal Services lawyer in New York City ever since and Project Director since 1970. Over the years, Gray has been an advocate and litigator in the areas of welfare, special education, unemployment insurance, and consumer law. For some years he taught welfare law as an adjunct at NYU Law School. His writing includes pieces on improving the quality of civil legal services programs.
Heather Kendall-Miller '91, senior staff attorney of the Native American Rights Fund, is Athabascan, and a tribal member of the Native Village of Dillingham. After clerking with Chief Justice Rabinowitz of the Alaska Supreme Court, Kendall-Miller received a two-year Skadden Fellowship to work for Alaska Legal Services and the Native American Rights Fund in the area of Alaska Native Rights. Since becoming a senior staff attorney with the NARF in 1993, she has practiced exclusively in the area of tribal rights and subsistence.
Kendall-Miller's civic activities include serving on the Honoring Nations Advisory Board of the Ford Foundation and a board member of the Alaska Conservation Foundation. She is former chair of the Indian Law Section of the Alaska Bar Association and she also served on the Alaska Supreme Court Committee on Fairness and Access to the Judicial System in 1997.
Gregory S. Schell '79, Managing Attorney of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Legal Services, provides free legal assistance to farmworkers throughout Florida, primarily in employment-related matters. Since graduating from law school, Schell has worked continuously for organizations providing free legal assistance to indigent workers. He has worked with Florida Rural Legal Services in Immokalee as well as Belle Glade, and served as director of the Migrant Farmworker Division of the Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland from 1983-88.
Schell received the Reginald Heber Smith award from National Legal Aid and Defender Association in 2004, which is awarded annually to a single public interest attorney for "outstanding achievement in providing legal services to the poor." He has also appeared on several television programs including Nightline, Today, 20/20, West 57th, and Exposé.
David A. Singleton '91 is an attorney and Executive Director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OJPC) and a Visiting Professor of Law at Northern Kentucky University. The OJPC is a non-partisan, nonprofit, public interest law office based in Cincinnati whose purpose is to reform Ohio's justice system. Upon graduation from law school, Singleton received a Skadden Fellowship to work at the Legal Action Center for the Homeless in New York City, where he practiced for three years.
He then worked as a public defender for seven years, first with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and then with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. After moving to Cincinnati in 2001, Singleton practiced at Thompson Hine before joining OJPC as its Executive Director in July 2002.
Lois J. Wood '74 of East St. Louis, Illinois is the Executive Director of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc. which provides free civil legal services to the more than 400,000 low-income residents of 65 counties in central and southern Illinois. Wood was the 1973/74 president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. After graduation from Law School, she became a staff attorney for Land of Lincoln in its East St. Louis office, and then Managing Attorney of the office from 1978–2004, when she became Executive Director.
As a legal services attorney, she was mostly deeply involved in individual and class litigation for public housing and homeownership clients. She represented financially distressed farmers from 1986–96 through the Illinois Family Farm Law Project. In 2003, she received the Kutak-Dodds Price, a national award presented annually to a civil legal services attorney for creative and aggressive advocacy on behalf of the poor.
Wood is currently President of the Board of Farmers' Legal Action Group, a national advocacy organization. She is a Laureate of the Illinois Bar Association, the highest honor bestowed by that organization. She received the 1994 Attorney Recognition Award from the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois and received the Chief Judge Richard A. Hudlin IV Memorial Award in 2002 from the St. Clair County Bar Association. She has served on the Federal Judicial Selection Commission and Federal Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Southern District of Illinois. Wood has served as Director of the Division of Public Service of the American Bar Association General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section, and was also a council member of the section from 2001-2004.
Private/Public Partnerships: Best Practice
Moderator
David A. Grossman '88 has served as Managing Attorney and Faculty Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau since 2006. He is also a Clinical Professor of Law at HLS. Prior to joining the Bureau, Grossman worked at the Legal Services Center since 1995 as a staff attorney and clinical instructor in the Housing Unit. In 1997, he was appointed as the Senior Clinical Instructor and Managing Attorney of the Housing and Litigation Unit.
Before joining the LSC staff, Grossman clerked on the Supreme Court of Israel from 1988 to 1989; litigated with the New York law firm of Kramer, Levin, Nessen, Kamin & Frankel from 1989 to 1992; and practiced poverty law with the firm of Community Lawyers in Jamaica Plain from 1992 to 1995. He has been active in a number of left-leaning Jewish organizations, including the New Israel Fund, and worked for the Israeli political party Meretz.
Prior to his legal career, Grossman taught high school history, math and science and coached basketball in both the United States and Israel.
David Abromowitz '82 is Partner and Director of Goulston & Storrs P.C., as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. As Director, Abromowitz conducts a broad national practice leading complex development and financing transactions, representing for-profit, non-profit and governmental organizations. Abromowitz is nationally known for particular expertise in many areas of affordable housing and economic development, including Section 42 multi-family residential properties, active adult and assisted living communities, revitalized public housing and HOPE VI matters, Section 236 and Section 8 financings, community land trusts, and other multi-layered public and private financings.
As an active member of the community, Abromowitz has served as co-chair of Governor Deval Patrick's Housing Transition Working Group, chair and board member of the ABA Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development, co-chair and founding member of the Lawyers Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness as well as other board memberships. Abromowitz also served as chair of Goulston & Storrs Pro Bono Committee, overseeing the firm's award-winning pro bono program from 1997-2007. In 2004, he was honored by National Economic Development and Law Center.
Stefanie Balandis '93 has worked at Greater Boston Legal Services since 1996, with a primary focus on housing-related litigation. She also does legislative advocacy, works with tenant organizations to preserve affordable housing, runs an eviction defense clinic in Spanish, and advocates for the rights of tenants with mental disabilities. Balandis was lead counsel in federal court litigation on behalf of three Vietnamese families (Sang Vo v. City of Boston), spurred by unauthorized team inspections of non-English-speaking immigrants' apartments and enforcement action against landlords with no due process for tenants. A consent decree was reached in 2005 resulting in significant policy changes and monetary damages. Balandis has promoted invoking tenants' constitutional right to a jury amongst legal services advocates in eviction defense, and has a passion for jury trials.
Balandis serves on the Board of Directors of the Women's Bar Association and is a member of the WBA's Rosa Parks Committee. She also serves on the Boston Bar Association's Task Force on Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel. She is a former member of HLAB's Alumni Advisory Board. Balandis was honored with the Dow-Gardiner-Landrum Award in 2006 for outstanding commitment to legal services for the poor, and named a WBA "Unsung Hero" in 2005.
Her first legal services job was in California's Bay Area, where she represented a building of Central American families living in substandard conditions. She also spearheaded a domestic violence work group in Marin County to address problems in the legal system faced by victims.
Her international experience has included teaching in rural Botswana, and working with a network of battered women's hotlines in the former Yugoslavia under the auspices of HLS' Human Rights Program.
Andrew E. Goldsmith '04, a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, is the chair of Appleseed's Isaac Newton Society. A non-profit network of 16 public interest justice centers in the United States and Mexico, Appleseed is dedicated to building a society where opportunities are genuine, access to the law is universal and equal, and government advances the public interest. At HLS he was the President of the Journal on Legislation. After graduating, he clerked for the Honorable Reena Raggi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Michael Gregory '04 is Lecturer on Law and Senior Clinical Fellow in the Special Education/Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative Clinic, which is part of WilmerHale Legal Services Center. Gregory received a Skadden Fellowship in 2004 to work as an attorney in the Trauma and Learning Special Education Project in the Family and Children’s Law Unit. He became a Senior Clinical Fellow in September 2006 when his Skadden Fellowship was completed. As a clinical student at HLS, Gregory spent three semesters working at the Center—two in the Family Unit and one in the Community Enterprise Project.
Through his work with Family Law clients, Gregory observed the lingering effects that witnessing domestic violence can have on children. Long passionate about education issues and working with young people, the Trauma and Learning Project will give Gregory the opportunity to ensure that childhood survivors and witnesses of domestic violence have their special learning needs addressed in the classroom.
Reenah L. Kim '01 practices civil and complex commercial litigation, with a focus on employment matters as an associate at Covington & Burling LLP. In addition, Kim advises local non-profit organizations regarding various aspects of employment law, including the hiring and termination of employees, the establishment and enforcement of company policies and practices, employee manuals, family and medical leave, unemployment benefits, non-compete covenants, and other personnel issues. She has also represented plaintiffs in litigation asserting race and gender discrimination claims against their former employer and achieved favorable settlement. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Asia Pacific American Bar Association Education Fund and taught at an inner-city elementary school prior to attending law school.
Saturday Luncheon - Keynote Speaker
Hon. William F. Weld '70 is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP based in the Firm's New York office. He focuses his practice in the areas of government strategies, corporate investigations and compliance and general business advice, particularly in the financial area. Weld joined McDermott after serving as Governor of Massachusetts, where he was elected in 1990 and re-elected in 1994. In office he was credited with improving the business climate in the state by reducing taxes and regulations on businesses. He served as national co-chair of the Privatization Council and led business and trade missions to many countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Prior to his election as Governor, Weld was a federal prosecutor for seven years, serving as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts during the Reagan administration. He was also a commercial litigator in Boston for a dozen years.
Earlier in his career, Weld served in Washington as a staff member for both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves by appointment of the President as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Beyond the Big City: Challenges Facing HLS Grads in Smaller Cities and Rural Areas
Moderator
Leah A. Plunkett '06 is a staff attorney at New Hampshire Legal Assistance in Manchester, NH. With fellowship support from Equal Justice America, the Kaufman Fellowship, and the New Hampshire Bar Foundation, Plunkett is working on the Youth Law Project. The Youth Law Project provides direct civil legal representation for at-risk children and teenagers to get them the educational, social, and medical services they need to stay in their communities and out of the juvenile justice system. Before joining NHLA, Plunkett was a law clerk for Judge Catherine C. Blake in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
During law school, Plunkett served as a student attorney at and board member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where her practice focused on family law. She was also on the board of HLS for Choice. She spent her law school summers at the ACLU of Michigan and the National Women's Law Center.
Laurel A. Firestone '04 founded and co-directs the Community Water Center, a non-profit environmental justice organization located in Visalia, California. The CWC helps disadvantaged communities gain access to clean and affordable water. She previously served as the Director of the Rural Poverty Water Project at the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment in Delano, under a 2004-06 Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Under her leadership, the Rural Poverty Water Project was awarded recognition in 2005 by the Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform (POWER) at their annual California Water Policy Conference.
During law school, Firestone worked on a variety of projects combining human rights and environmental law, from working with trash pickers in the major cities of Brazil, to advising indigenous groups in the Amazon who sought to protect their traditional knowledge and genetic resources.
Deborah N. Goldstein '01 currently serves as Executive Vice President for the Center for Responsible Lending, a research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting borrowers from abusive lending practices. At the Center, she coordinates the organization's policy agenda and directs the Center's policy team of attorneys and legislative associates, which provides technical assistance to policymakers, community groups, and financial institutions on state and federal initiatives that address abusive practices in financial services.
Following law school, Goldstein assisted local organizations and lawmakers in drafting and advocating for legislative remedies to address exorbitant fees on subprime mortgages in New Jersey and played a critical role in negotiating the New Jersey Home Ownership Security Act. She also advised the sponsors of the Massachusetts Predatory Home Loan Practices Act of 2004, and worked with lead organizations in the state of Massachusetts to support enactment of the legislation.
Tricia H. Lucas '80 is Policy Director at New Futures. Following graduation from college, Lucas began her public work as a junior high school math teacher and coach outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Following graduation from law school and a clerkship on the Maine Supreme Court, Lucas spent a number of years in part-time private corporate legal practice while her children were young.
In 1992 she began 15 years of service with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services where she served in a number of different legal and management positions: legal counsel to the child protection and juvenile justice agency; director of legislative affairs for the department; assistant director of the juvenile justice agency; and legal counsel to the state psychiatric hospital.
In 2004 she was recognized for her public service with an award of a fellowship to attend the Senior Executive Public Service program at the Kennedy School of Government. In 2007 Lucas moved to the non profit sector and presently serves as the policy director for New Futures, a nonpartisan advocacy organization working to increase access to alcohol and drug treatment services.
Robert McDuff '80 is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney practicing in Jackson, Mississippi. His practice includes trial and appellate work in cases throughout the country, including four cases that he has argued in the United States Supreme Court. He has represented black voters in several cases in the south seeking to increase the number of black-majority election districts for public officials, including members of congress, state legislators, and state court judges. He has handled cases involving voting rights, police misconduct, free speech, indigent defense funding, access to the courts, abortion rights, school prayer, and discrimination in employment and housing.
McDuff’s criminal practice is comprised of both retained and appointed cases, including several death penalty cases. He presently is representing one of the “Jena 6" defendants in Jena, Louisiana. He is a recipient of the Pro Bono Service Award of the International Human Rights Law Group of Washington, D.C.; the NAACP Legal Award of the Mississippi Conference NAACP; the Ernst Borinski Civil Libertarian Award presented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi; and the 2006 Trial Lawyer of the Year award of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association. He is vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Center for Justice and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Prior to opening his practice in Jackson in 1992, McDuff was an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, DC and, before that, a member of the faculty of the University of Mississippi Law School, where he taught and also directed a federal court public defender program. He was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice of the Eastern District of Texas.
Nurturing the Next Generation: How to Promote Public Service in an Era of Rising Student Debt
Moderator
Kenneth H. Lafler is Director of Student Financial Services at Harvard Law School. Lafler has worked at HLS since 1987 as a staff assistant, financial aid officer, systems coordinator, Assistant Director of Financial Aid, and Director of LIPP and Summer Funding. He belongs to national and regional financial aid associations and has presented at local and national conferences. He is also a professional musician and published songwriter, contributing to more than a dozen commercially released albums and performing in 20 states over the past two decades.
Lafler volunteers as a mentor for Year Up, a nonprofit organization that provides training and internships to young adults, and serves as co-chair of the Law School's union-management joint council.
David J. Barron '94 is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His research and writing focuses on war powers, presidential power and the separation of powers as well as on cities, sprawl and federalism. His articles on these subjects have appeared in the Harvard and Stanford Law Reviews, as well as the Yale Law Journal. He is the author of several books.
He comments on topics in urban innovation for various national media outlets and has testified on war powers before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Vermont State legislature. He also served as an advisor to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmations proceedings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
Prior to teaching, Barron served as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel for the United States Justice Department from 1996-1999, and he was a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Amy E. Copperman '98 has been a Staff Attorney in the Housing Unit at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), in Boston, MA since 1998. After graduating from law school, she received a Skadden Fellowship to work at MLRI on a project to provide advocacy to tenants about their rights to access, to live in, and to preserve public and subsidized housing. Copperman's litigation work focuses on fair housing. She was co-counsel on a federal lawsuit where she represented applicants who successfully challenged racially discriminatory residency preferences in eight Massachusetts subsidized housing programs, and is currently co-counsel in two lawsuits on behalf of tenants at and applicants for public housing developments which have been threatened with demolition.
She represents the Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants and the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless in matters affecting public housing tenants and applicants at the state and federal level. She is the author of numerous publications for advocates and tenants, and is the co-editor of Legal Tactics: Finding Public and Subsidized Housing.
While at HLS, Amy participated in clinical programs at the Wilmer/Hale Legal Services Center, Greater Boston Legal Services, Prisoners Legal Assistance Project, and Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. Prior to attending law school, she worked at Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation and Women’s Prison Association, both in New York City.
Susan Butler Plum is the founding Director of the Skadden Fellowship Foundation which awards two year grants to twenty-five public interest attorneys a year. Prior to joining Skadden, Butler Plum was the Director of the Botwinick-Wolfensohn Foundation and Program Director of the Booth Ferris Foundation. She was also the Associate Director for the Environmental Defense Fund. Among her board affiliations are trusteeships of The Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights and Peer Health Exchange.
She is also a member of the Selection Committee of the Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of The Kathryn A. McDonald Education Advocacy Project at The Legal Aid Society of New York City and a member of the Clinical and Careers Committee of the Lighthouse for the Blind. Butler Plum is also a member of the Advisory Board of Opportunity Agenda, as well as a member of the Tides Foundation Momentum Steering Committee.
John P. Sarbanes '88, Congressman, represents Maryland's Third Congressional District. Congressman Sarbanes has nearly two decades of experience in the private, public and non-profit sectors. For sixteen years, and six as chair, Sarbanes served on the Health Care Practice at Venable, one of the nation's leading law firms, where he represented non-profit hospitals and senior living providers in their mission to deliver high quality care to the people of Maryland. For nearly twenty years, he has worked to improve public education. Most recently, Sarbanes completed a seven-year tenure as special assistant to the State Superintendent of Schools, serving as liaison to the Baltimore City Public Schools under the City-State Partnership.
Throughout his life, Congressman Sarbanes has fought to improve the lives of working people in Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region. On issues like consumer protection, decent public housing and fair treatment in the workplace, he has championed the efforts of the Public Justice Center and other public interest organizations that serve Maryland's families. Congressman Sarbanes has worked to improve loan repayment legislation through the creation of The Education for Public Service Act, which allows those who choose a career in public service, such as teachers, public safety officers, and civil servants, to receive significant loan forgiveness in return for ten years of service in the public sector.
After graduating from HLS, Sarbanes clerked for Judge J. Frederick Motz on the federal district court and began his law practice at Venable.
D. Loren Washburn '02, Assistant United States Attorney, is a member of the white collar crime unit in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Utah. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, he worked for two years as a trial attorney in the Northern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice. He joined the Justice Department as part of the Attorney General's honors program and has been a Heyman Fellow during his government service. After graduating from law school, he clerked for the Honorable Stephen Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
During law school Washburn was a founding member of E.L.A.B., a student group organized to study, analyze, and debate the appropriate use of biotechnology in society. He participated in organizing panel discussions and other activities and generally working to get the fledgling organization off the ground.
Moderator
Alan Amir Ali Khazei '87 co-founded City Year in 1988 and served its CEO until 2006. Founded in 1988, City Year today enlists more than 1,200 young adults, in 16 communities across America and in Johannesburg South Africa, for a demanding year of full-time community service, civic engagement and leadership development. Khazei is now a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Khazei has received numerous honors for his leadership in the nonprofit sector—in 2006, U.S. News & World Report recognized Khazei as among America's Best Leaders. He has also received the Reebok Human Rights Award and the Jefferson Award for Public Service. Khazei currently serves on the Board of Directors of Citizen Schools, Harvard Alumni Association, New Profit, Inc., Share Our Strength, and on the Advisory Board of America's Promise, the Partnership for Public Service, and the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Janet L. Benshoof '72, President and Founder, Global Justice Center, is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer who has established landmark legal precedents on women's reproductive and equality rights, the right to free expression, freedom of religion, and gender crimes in transitional justice law. As President of the Global Justice Center, Benshoof is currently developing new legal tools to implement gender equality, focusing on transitional democracies and enforcing criminal accountability during conflict. Benshoof has been selected by the National Law Journal as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America," and is the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship in recognition of her singular contributions to advancing women's legal rights.
As Director of the American Civil Liberties Reproductive Freedom Project, for fifteen years she spearheaded national litigation focusing on shaping Supreme Court jurisprudence on gender equality and reproductive choice. In 1992 Benshoof founded the first international human rights organization specializing in reproductive choice and equality, now the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).
Benshoof lectures at law schools and universities globally and has taught human rights law at Bard College and Harvard Law School. She is an international law advisor to several Burmese exile groups and is currently working on a project to refer the military in Burma to the International Criminal Court. Benshoof is also advising women from Burma and Kudistan, Iraq, on constitution drafting and writing a book on the exclusion of women in Burma from political leadership from 1886 to the present.
Benshoof has published numerous articles and has appeared on many news programs. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on its Burma Task Force.
Betsy Krebs '87, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Youth Advocacy Center, collaborates with teens, child welfare professionals, advocates, lawyers, and professionals in the private sector. Krebs has led the development of Youth Advocacy Center to help young people improve their odds for the future for fifteen years. In 2005 she was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs, in recognition of her vision and work. Before starting Youth Advocacy Center, she worked as an attorney representing foster care children. Krebs is coauthor of Beyond the Foster Care System: The Future for Teens as well as numerous articles and publications for and about teenagers in foster care and about self-advocacy.
Jessica A. Neuwirth '85 is the founder and President of Equality Now, an international human rights organization established in 1992 to work for an end to all forms of violence and discrimination against women. From 1985 to 1990, she worked for Amnesty International in various capacities, serving as a Tour Producer for Human Rights Now, an international concert tour in 1988 commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
She subsequently worked in international finance, specializing in sovereign debt restructuring for developing countries as an associate at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Neuwirth has also worked for the United Nations, serving for several years in the Office of Legal Affairs and more recently as an expert consultant to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on issues of sexual violence in several cases including Akayesu, a landmark decision recognizing rape as a form of genocide, and in the Media Case, a decision holding Rwandan media executives accountable for the role of the media in the 1994 genocide. As a guest lecturer, in 2005 she taught a seminar on international women’s rights at HLS.
Earl M. Phalen '93 is the founder and Chief Executive Office of the BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) Foundation. BELL is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase the academic achievements, self-esteem and life opportunities of children living in low-income, urban communities. During his time at HLS, Phalen became involved in several tutoring and community education efforts. In 1997, Phalen received national recognition for his work when President Clinton awarded him a Presidential Service Award. He later earned a Social Capitalist Award from Fast Company magazine as one of the top 25 entrepreneurs solving the world's toughest problems with creativity, ingenuity and passion.
Talking Across the Table: Grantmakers' and Grantseekers' Perspectives on Foundation Support
Moderator
Jacqueline A. Berrien '86 has served as the Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) since September 2004. In this role, Berrien assists with the direction and implementation of LDF's national legal advocacy and scholarship programs. From 2001 to 2004 Berrien was a Program Officer in the Governance and Civil Society Unit of the Ford Foundation's Peace and Social Justice Program. Berrien also co-chaired the Funders' Committee for Civic Participation, a philanthropic affinity group affiliated with the Council on Foundations.
Before joining the Ford Foundation, Berrien practiced civil rights law for more than fifteen years, and specialized in voting rights law. Between 1994 and 2001, Berrien was an Assistant Counsel with LDF, where she coordinated all of LDF's work in the area of voting rights and political participation and represented African-American voters in proceedings before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts.
Between 1987 and 1994, Berrien worked as an attorney with the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., and with the National Legal Department and Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. Following law school, Berrien worked as a law clerk to the Honorable U.W. Clemon, the first African-American United States District Court Judge in Birmingham, Alabama. She has published several articles on race and gender discrimination issues and has also taught trial advocacy at Harvard and Fordham law schools and was appointed to the adjunct faculty of New York Law School in 1995.
In recognition of her professional accomplishments and dedication to the field of public interest law, Berrien received the Muhammad Kenyatta Young Alumni Award from the Harvard Black Law Students Association in 1993, and was designated a Wasserstein Public Interest Law Fellow in 1991. Berrien is a Trustee of Oberlin College and a member of the Association of Black Foundation Executives, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Emmanuel Baptist Church, the NAACP and the National Bar Association.
Elise C. Boddie '96 is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fordham Law School. Prior to joining the Fordham faculty, she was an Associate Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (LDF) and directed LDF's Education Program. Boddie joined LDF from the New York office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson where she practiced corporate litigation. She was the first recipient of the Fried Frank/NAACP-LDF fellowship. Prior to receiving this fellowship, she clerked for the Honorable Robert Carter of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. While in law school, Boddie served as an executive editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Before law school, Boddie participated in the New York City Urban Fellows program and served in former New York City Mayor Dinkins's city legislative office.
Patrick J. Horvath '87 is the Manager of the Strengthening Neighborhoods Program (SNP) at The Denver Foundation, the nonprofit community foundation for the seven county metro Denver (Colorado) region. The SNP is a grassroots, asset-based community development program that works directly with residents of ten low-income metro Denver communities to help them grow stronger from within.
Horvath is also a board member of Grassroots Grantmakers, a national affinity group of funders that work directly with residents to strengthen civic engagement and promote resident-driven social change. He has managed the Strengthening Neighborhoods Program since May 2001, and for a year prior to that was a program officer in The Denver Foundation's Community Grants Program.
Horvath spent the first thirteen years of his post-HLS career at the Urban Justice Center (UJC), a non-profit legal services agency in New York City, where he was Associate Director and worked as an attorney providing civil legal services to homeless adults. For much of his time at the UJC he was responsible for raising a hefty portion of the agency's budget, so he has extensive experience on both sides of "the table."
Raquiba N. LaBrie '94 is the Program Director of the Open Society Institute's Sentencing & Incarceration Alternatives Project (the Alternatives Project). The Alternatives Project seeks to reduce the scale of incarceration in the U.S. by: eliminating race and class disparities in sentencing and incarceration; advancing sentencing reform; promoting alternatives to incarceration; and limiting prison growth and prison privatization.
LaBrie also oversees the work of the Soros Justice Fellowships (SJF). SJF supports outstanding individuals, including lawyers, advocates, grassroots organizers, activist academics, journalists, and filmmakers, to implement innovative projects that address one or more of the criminal justice priorities of OSI's U.S. Justice Fund. In the past year, LaBrie has managed OSI's work in addressing the predatory aspects of subprime lending. She began her tenure at OSI in 2000 as the Program Officer for OSI's Access to Justice Program. The Access to Justice Program made grants to promote equal access to quality civil legal aid for low-income communities and communities of color.
Before joining OSI, LaBrie was an associate in the exempt organizations practice group of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. While there she represented a range of private foundations and non-governmental organizations, including community economic development organizations, social justice activists, and funders supporting micro-credit lending institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School.
Deborah Peterson Small '87 is the Executive Director and founder of Break the Chains. Before founding Break the Chains, Small was Director of Public Policy for the Drug Policy Alliance where she led a variety of community-based initiatives for progressive drug policy reform. She became an ardent advocate for drug policy reform as she became increasingly aware of the grossly disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated for drug offenses. As part of the work of BTC she is privileged to speak regularly to the public, including elected officials, religious, community leaders and parents about issues relating to our government's failed drug policies. She has also served as Legislative Director for the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Work-Life Balance: Personal Stories & Public Policy Possibilities
Moderator
Chai R. Feldblum '85 is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., Director of Georgetown's Federal Legislation Clinic, and Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010. After graduating from law school, Feldblum clerked for Judge Frank M. Coffin on the First Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. While serving as a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, Feldblum was one of the lead lawyers crafting and negotiating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Professor Feldblum is a nationally known scholar and advocate on disability rights, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and social welfare policy. She is also a leading speaker on legislative and regulatory structures. As Director of the Federal Legislation Clinic, Feldblum has represented (among other groups) Catholic Charities USA, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Health Privacy Project, the Family Violence Prevention Center, and the Epilepsy Foundation of America.
In 2003, Feldblum launched and now co-directs Workplace Flexibility 2010. This initiative, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is engaged in a multi-year effort of research, outreach and consensus-building designed to advance a national policy on workplace flexibility for the United States. The structure of Workplace Flexibility 2010 is based on Professor Feldblum's theory of advocacy, set forth in The Art of Legislative Lawyering and the Six Circles Theory of Advocacy.
Shereen R. Arent '84 is the Managing Director of Legal Advocacy at the American Diabetes Association. The Association's mission of is to prevent and cure diabetes, and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. It is the nation's leading nonprofit health organization providing diabetes research, information, and advocacy. In this position, Arent coordinates a nationwide campaign to eliminate discrimination against people with diabetes in employment, education, correctional institutions, and places of public accommodation.
Prior to coming to the American Diabetes Association in 1999, Arent established the first Equal Employment Opportunity office for the Architect of the Capitol, an agency of Congress, and was a partner at two public interest law firms, Youngdahl & Youngdahl in Little Rock, Arkansas and Newman & Newell in Washington, D.C. While in private practice, she focused on union-side labor law and employment discrimination litigation, often combining the two to represent unions as plaintiffs in employment discrimination class actions. Arent also served as law clerk to Hon. Phyllis A. Kravitch, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She was a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at HLS for the 2003-04 academic year.
Susanne Sachsman '02 is an attorney for the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the staff of Chairman Henry Waxman. The Committee is the main oversight body of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate waste, fraud and abuse. Prior to joining the Committee in February of 2007, Sachsman was a trial attorney in the Department of Justice, Tax Division, Northern Criminal Enforcement Section, from 2003 to 2007. She also was a law clerk for the Honorable R. Barclay Surrick in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 2002-2003. Sachsman has been a Heyman Fellow and a Kaufman Fellow.
Brian Q. Wolfman '84 is the Director of Public Citizen Litigation Group. Wolfman’s litigation includes cases involving consumer health and safety regulation, freedom of information, expanding access to the courts, opposing federal preemption of state products liability law, consumer law, and class actions. In the preemption area, he has been lead counsel in a range of cases involving injuries from radiation exposure, prescription drugs, pesticides, and medical devices.
With respect to class actions, Wolfman's practice includes representing class plaintiffs. In recent years, however, his class action work has focused on settlement objections. Wolfman has briefed and argued objections to class action settlements on behalf of absent class members, consumer safety organizations, and labor unions. He has written articles on class actions, has testified before Congress regarding the so-called Class Action Fairness Act (and its predecessors) and before the federal Civil Rules Advisory Committee. He is also an advisor to the American Law Institute's project on the Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation.
Wolfman has argued four cases before the Supreme Court (winning three of them), been lead counsel in about a dozen others, and, as co-counsel to his Litigation Group colleagues and others, had substantial involvement in several dozen more. He co-directs the Litigation Group's Alan Morrison Supreme Court Assistance Project with the Project's Fellow. Wolfman currently teaches a course on appellate courts at HLS and at American University Law School and has previously taught similar courses at Stanford Law School and Georgetown University Law Center.
Before joining the Litigation Group in 1990, Wolfman was a staff attorney at Legal Services of Arkansas, where he did trial and appellate work in cases involving housing law, welfare law, family law, employment rights, and consumer protection. Before that, Wolfman clerked for the Honorable R. Lanier Anderson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Public Interest Renaissance at HLS
Moderator
Alexa Shabecoff is Assistant Dean for Public Service and Director of the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising (OPIA) at HLS. OPIA was the first office of its kind in the nation, dedicated to advising Harvard Law School students and alumni/ae about public service careers. Shabecoff began her affiliation with OPIA as a Wasserstein Fellow-in-Residence during the fall of 1993 before joining OPIA as a member of its staff.
During her time with OPIA, the number of students pursuing public service work over the summer has grown to 390 this past summer and the percentage of students pursuing postgraduate public service work upon graduation or after a clerkship has grown to 10 to 12%. Shabecoff has received several awards for her work, including the 2004 Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award, awarded by the graduating class to one staff member.
Before joining OPIA, Shabecoff spent approximately 8 years as a legal services lawyer in both Missouri and Massachusetts. She is a 1986 graduate of NYU School of Law where she was a Root Tilden Scholar and a Vice President of the Public Interest Law Foundation. Prior to law school she worked as a paralegal for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky. Alexa is a 1999 graduate of "Lead Boston," a community leadership and diversity-training program of the National Conference for Community and Justice.
Sarah E. Belton '09 is a second-year student at Harvard. While at HLS, Sarah has been involved in a variety of activities related to public interest. In 2007 she served as one of the co-chairs of the Public Interest Auction and she was recently a co-chair of the 25th Annual Black Law Students Association Spring Conference, which took place in February of 2008. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and also participates in Harvard Defenders.
Last summer Sarah worked at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco, California; there she represented adolescent clients in guardianship, immigration, dependency and education cases. Sarah has spent her term-time working on criminal justice and child advocacy issues. During her 1L year she worked with the Innocence Project of New Orleans. Additionally, she has participated in the Wilmer Hale Legal Services Center Family Law Clinic and a clinical working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services through the Child Advocacy Program. This summer Sarah will be in Atlanta working at the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Robert A. Cacace, Jr. '08 is a third-year student at Harvard, and is counting the days until the grace period expires and student loan payments are due. While at HLS, Cacace has worked in a range of public interest positions. He spent two summers working with the Department of Justice. During his first summer, Cacace interned at the Unites States Attorney's Office in Boston. After his second year, he spent the summer in the Civil Rights Division at DOJ's main office in Washington, DC; there, he helped to prosecute civil rights violations that occurred in the education arena. Back on campus, he was a member of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and BlackLetter Law Journal.
Cacace spent his term-time working on refugee and immigrants' rights issues. He participated in the Law School's terrific Refugee and Asylum Clinic, and then received funding to travel off-campus for Winter Term during his second and third years. Cacace worked on impact litigation and detention matters with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami, and on law reform issues with the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project in New York City.
Cacace will return to government service this Fall as a clerk for the Honorable Gladys Kessler of the District of Columbia. After that, he will take up his mission to have the DOJ re-located to New York City. Should Plan A somehow fail, he intends to apply to the Honors Program or pursue a fellowship in the civil rights or immigration field.
Lisa Dealy is Director of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs at Harvard Law School where she oversees twenty in-house clinics and student practice organizations, hundreds of externship placements, the clinical curriculum and mandatory pro bono placements. Prior to merging the Clinical and Pro Bono Programs in Fall 2005, Dealy started the mandatory Pro Bono Service Program at HLS in 2002. She has also worked as the Director of the Low Income Protection Plan (LIPP) and Summer Public Interest Funding at HLS (1996-2002), where she implemented the first guaranteed summer funding program for all students interested in going into summer public interest jobs.
Dealy also managed an expansion of the LIPP program, making it one of the leading law school loan forgiveness programs. She has worked in several other positions at HLS, including in the Clinical Programs and at the Prison Legal Assistance Project.
Lisa graduated from Northeastern University School of Law where she did co-ops in criminal defense and prisoner’s rights work. Prior to law school she worked at the Public Defenders in Seattle and taught English in Japan.
Veena A. Iyer '05 is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Legal Assistance Foundation in Chicago. She works on the Legal Assistance Project for Students. Specifically, the Project services low-income students enrolled in adult education and English as a second language (ESL) courses at Truman College—a local community college that is the largest provider of free ESL classes in Illinois. Iyer provides a range of legal services including direct representation, legal education and policy advocacy.
Iyer's dedication to advocating for immigrants developed out of her work at the Indo-American Center and the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center. While working at these agencies, she learned that spouses, landlords and employers often exploit low-income immigrants by taking advantage of their tenuous immigration status, limited English proficiency and lack of knowledge about the American legal system.
During law school, Iyer participated in clinical and internship opportunities that exposed her to several aspects of poverty law. During her first summer of law school, she worked on post-9/11 litigation at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. During her second summer, she worked on immigration cases at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago and on policy issues at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. During her second and third years of law school, Iyer served as a Student Attorney and Training Director for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where she represented clients in family, unemployment and social security matters. After law school, Iyer worked as a law clerk for Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
John M. Rappaport '06 is a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California. He works in the office's Capital Habeas Unit, litigating habeas petitions in the state and federal courts on behalf of clients who have been sentenced to death. Prior to joining the public defender, Rappaport clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
At HLS, Rappaport served as Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review. He was a research assistant to several professors, including Professors Laurence Tribe, Bill Stuntz, and Ken Mack. He also served as a teaching fellow for Professor Lani Guinier's course on the responsibilities of public lawyers and led a section of Professor Richard Fallon's Constitutional Law course at Harvard College.
During his Harvard summers, Rappaport interned in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and twice at the ACLU, first in Michigan and then New York. He has received the Heyman, Vorenberg, and Kaufman public interest fellowships from Harvard. In 2009, Rappaport will clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.