Legal Landscapes Series

Introduction

The Legal Landscapes panels, formerly known as the Practice Perspectives panels, introduce students to some of the vast number of public and private careers within the legal profession. The panels are hosted by OPIA and/or OCS and generally focus on legal practice settings. Four Practice Perspectives are specifically public interest oriented. The panels provide an opportunity to hear about the kind of work public interest lawyers perform. Dinner will be served at every panel.

Legal Landscapes: Public International

Thursday, October 1, 2009, 7:00 pm

Anticipated Panelists Include: 

Lisa Bhansali, Senior Public Sector Management Specialist, World Bank, Washington, D.C. 
Lisa Bhansali is a Senior Public Sector Management Specialist in the Africa and Latin America and Caribbean regions of the World Bank, where she works on Governance and Rule of Law Reform. She is the Task Manager of a number of projects and analytical studies in Africa and Latin American countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Kenya, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, among others. Prior to joining the Governance department, Professor Bhansali was a Sr. Counsel in Bank’s Legal and Judicial Reform Unit of the Legal Vice-Presidency. From 1996-2001, she worked at the Inter-American Development Bank as a specialist on criminal justice reform. She has also worked for the Open Society Institute and served as a Political Affairs in the United Nations. She has practiced law in the U.S. and in Latin America with the firm of Baker & McKenzie. She is admitted to practice in New York, the District of Columbia and the United States Supreme Court. Some of her publications include Measuring the Impact of Criminal Justice Reform in Latin America, in Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge (Carothers, ed., Carnegie, 2006); Engendering Justice: a Gender Assessment’s Impact on Project Design (Development Economics Department Notes, World Bank, 2005); Procedural Shortcomings in the Defense of Human Rights: An Inequality of Arms, in Human Rights in the Inter-American System (Harris & Livingstone, eds., Oxford University Press, 1998). Professor Bhansali has taught a seminar on Legal and Judicial Reform and the Administration of Justice at the Washington College of Law, American University since 2000. Professor Bhansali received her B.A., B.S., University of Michigan, her M.P.P. from Columbia University, and her J.D from Georgetown University Law School.

James Goldston ’87, Executive Director, Open Society Justice Initiative, New York, NY
James Goldston is the Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational program of the Open Society Institute that promotes rights-based law reform and the development of legal capacity worldwide. In 2007-08, while on leave from OSI, Mr. Goldston served as Coordinator of Prosecutions and Senior Trial Attorney at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Previously, as Legal Director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center, he 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. In 1996, he 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, he was a prosecutor in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he specialized in the prosecution of organized crime. He previously worked for Human Rights Watch. A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Law School, he has written widely on issues of human rights and racial discrimination. He has engaged in law reform fieldwork and investigated rights abuses in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Clifton M. Johnson, Assistant Legal Adviser, Office of Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Department of State, Washington, D.C.
Clifton Johnson is the Department of State’s Assistant Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence and a member of the Senior Executive Service. He previously served as Legal Counselor at U.S. Embassy The Hague and Agent to the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal – positions he held from July 2001 to July 2006. As Legal Counselor he represented the interests of the United States before various international tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Prior to his assignment to The Hague, Mr. Johnson was the Deputy Assistant Legal Adviser for International Claims and Investment Disputes. Mr. Johnson has also served as the Department’s primary lawyer for counterterrorism and for missile, chemical, and biological weapons nonproliferation. He was detailed to the Under Secretary for International Security Affairs for two years where he served as a Special Assistant, coordinating policy on such matters as the establishment of the Wassenaar Arrangement and conventional weapons nonproliferation. Prior to joining the State Department in 1990, Mr. Johnson was a judicial law clerk for Judge Kravitch on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He graduated from NYU School of Law cum laude where he served as a Book Review Editor for the NYU Law Review and was member of the Order of the Coif.

Regan E. Ralph, Executive Director, Fund for Global Human Rights, Washington, D.C.
Regan E. Ralph is the founding executive director of the Fund for Global Human Rights. Prior to launching the Fund, Regan was Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington D.C. where she led advocacy, policy and educational strategies to promote the quality and availability of health care for American women. From 1992-2001, Regan helped build and ultimately directed the Women’s Rights division of Human Rights Watch, where she developed campaigns to ensure the prosecution of sexual violence in conflict as a war crime, to secure recognition of gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum, and to promote women’s rights in countries including Russia, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Pakistan and Mexico. Regan is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School, and studied international law at the London School of Economics and Arabic at the American University in Cairo. She chairs the board of the Center for Health and Gender Equity and serves on the advisory council of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown University Law Center.

Moderated by Mindy Roseman, Academic Director for the Human Rights Program, Lecturer on Law, HLS
Mindy Jane Roseman is the Academic Director of the Human Rights Program, and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Before joining HRP, Roseman was an Instructor in the Department of Population and International Health at Harvard School of Public Health, and a Senior Research Officer at the International Health and Human Rights Program, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health. Roseman researched and reported on a range of health and human rights issues, with special focus on reproductive and sexual rights, including HIV and AIDS, and women’s and children’s rights. Before coming to Harvard she had been a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, in charge of its East and Central European program. After graduating from Northwestern University Law School in 1986, she clerked for Judge John F. Grady, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District, IL. She also holds a doctorate in Modern European History, with a focus on the history of reproductive health, from Columbia University. Her publications include Reproductive Health and Rights: The Way Forward (Laura Reichenbach, co-editor), Interrogations, Forced Feedings and the Role of Health Professionals (co-edited with Ryan Goodman, Harvard University Press 2009), Women of the World (East Central Europe): Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives (CRLP, 2000), and Beyond Words: Images from America’s Concentration Camps (co-authored with Deborah Gesensway) (Cornell University Press 1987).

To view the panel from this year, please click here.  

Legal Landscapes: Government

Thursday, October 8, 2009, 7:00 pm

Anticipated Panelists Include: 

Michael Best ’91, General Counsel to the Chancellor, New York City Department of Education, New York, NY
Michael Best has been working for the City of New York for more than fifteen years. Currently, he is General Counsel of the New York City Department of Education, where he oversees legal, investigative, audit and compliance matters for the nation’s largest school district and manages a staff of 250. Before his appointment to that position, he served as General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs at the New York City Host Committee 2004, the not-for-profit corporation formed by New York City to host the 2004 Republican National Convention. Previously, he was Deputy Counsel to the Mayor, serving as the second-ranking lawyer on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s City Hall staff. Mr. Best has also served as the Director of the Mayor's Office of Contracts, where he oversaw New York City’s procurement system, and as General Counsel in the Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator, where he advised the Mayor on public safety and the criminal justice system. After graduating from HLS magna cum laude, he began his career by clerking for Judge Thomas P. Griesa of the Southern District of New York, and he then spent six years as a prosecutor at the New York County District Attorney's Office.

Silvestre Fontes, Senior Trial Counsel, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Enforcement, Boston, MA
Silvestre Fontes is a Senior Trial Counsel with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Boston Regional Office (BRO). Silvestre is a graduate of Boston College (B.A. 1989), the University of Chicago (A.M. 1991) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D. 1994), from where he graduated cum laude and was an Editor on the Law Review. After law school, Silvestre clerked for a year for the Honorable Norma L. Shapiro, a federal judge in Philadelphia. Following his clerkship, Silvestre worked at two major Boston law firms – Ropes & Gray and Choate, Hall & Stewart. He joined the Commission staff in 1998 as a staff attorney and has since also served as a branch chief (2000-2004) and in his current position as Senior Trial Counsel (2004-current) in the Boston office. In his current position, Silvestre represents the Commission in actions it files administratively and in federal court.

Michael Felsen, Acting Regional Solicitor, United States Department of Labor, Boston, MA
Michael Felsen joined the Boston Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Solicitor in 1979. Currently serving as its Acting Regional Solicitor, he is responsible for overseeing the provision of legal services, including legal advice and litigation, on behalf of the Department of Labor’s several agencies covering the six New England states. After handling a number of trial litigation cases arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, in 1983 Michael began to focus principally on cases arising under Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”). In 1991 he began serving as Counsel for ERISA, responsible for supervision of all Labor Department litigation enforcing the provisions of Title I of ERISA in New England, as well as coordination of legal support provided to the Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration. Mike is a past Chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section, and clerked for Justice Paul J. Liacos of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court before joining the Solicitor’s Office. He has a B.A. from Harvard College (1971) and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law (1978). Michael’s email address is felsen.michael@dol.gov.

Tracy Triplett, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Government Bureau, Administrative Law Division, Boston, MA
Tracy Triplett is a native of Stamford, CT. She graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor of science in natural resources. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001, along with a master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. After clerking for two years for Judge William K. Sessions III in the Vermont Federal District Court, Ms. Triplett began work as an assistant corporation counsel in the environmental law division of the New York City Law Department. During her four years representing New York City, Ms. Triplett handled enforcement of the City’s watershed land use regulations designed to protect its upstate drinking water supply in Westchester and Putnam Counties. She also worked on several cases defending high profile City land use and environmental policies. In 2008, Ms. Triplett joined the environmental protection division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general. In her current position, she handles litigation enforcing Massachusetts’ environmental laws covering issues ranging from air and water pollution to hazardous and solid waste remediation to wetlands protection.

Moderated by Professor Alex Whiting, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Professor Alex Whiting joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an Assistant Clinical Professor in 2007 as the Assistant Clinical Professor where he teaches Government Lawyer, War Crimes Prosecution, and Evidence. Before his move into academia, Professor Whiting was the Senior Trial Attorney for the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia where he presented cases as Lead Counsel in The Hague from 2002 until 2007. From 1995 – 2002 Professor Whiting was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, MA where he worked for the Organized Crime and Strike Force Unit and the Public Corruption and Special Prosecution Unit. Professor Whiting also spent time at the Department of Justice. There, he was a Trial Attorney for the Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section from 1991 – 1995. He received Certificates of Commendation and a Special Achievement Award for his service during his time at the Department of Justice. Professor Whiting graduated from Yale Law School in 1990..

To hear a recording of this year's panel, click here.

Legal Landscapes: Criminal Prosecution/Defense

Wednesday, October 22, 2009, 7:00 pm

Anticipated Panelists Include:

Roberto  M.  Braceras, Partner, Goodwin Procter, Boston, MA
Roberto Braceras, a partner in Goodwin’s litigation department, specializes in white collar criminal defense, securities fraud, and complex commercial and products liability litigation. Mr. Braceras, a former federal prosecutor, has tried jury and non-jury cases in both state and federal court. He has defended a variety of investigations before the SEC and self-regulatory organizations. Mr. Braceras is a former member (appointed by former Governor Mitt Romney) of the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission and the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission. He served, at the request of the U.S. District Court, as a member of a Federal Magistrate Merit Selection Panel and on the executive committee of the District Court’s Pro Bono Program. Prior to private practice, Mr. Braceras worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Criminal Division, Fraud Section. During his tenure at DOJ, he investigated and prosecuted various complex federal crimes, including telemarketing fraud, money laundering, wire fraud, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) offenses.  He also prosecuted violent crimes with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and bank fraud cases with the New England Bank Fraud Task Force. He clerked for the Hon. Nathaniel M. Gorton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Heidi Brieger, Chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Unit, United States Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, Boston, MA
Heidi Brieger is a graduate of Boston College Law School.  Upon graduation, she clerked for the Honorable Andrew A. Caffrey of the US District Court of MA.  Immediately after her clerkship, she joined the law firm of Wilmer Hale and rose to the level of junior partner in its litigation department.  In 1992, Heidi joined the USAO as an Assistant US Attorney, where she worked in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.  She then moved to the Organized Crime Strike Force and in 2006, she became Chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Unit in the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Massachusetts. Ms. Brieger prosecutes cases from international money laundering and narcotics trafficking cases to local “community impact” narcotics cases and supervises 17 prosecutors and 10 support staff.

Syrie Fried ’81, Assistant Federal Public Defender, The Federal Public Defender's Office for the Districts of Massachusetts, Boston, MA
Syrie Fried ’81 is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School (’81). She started her career at the Miami Public Defender’s Office.  She later worked for 6 years at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and at the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Boston and Roxbury.  She has also done criminal defense work in private practice.  Between 1994 and 1999 Ms. Fried was a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute.  Early in her career she taught legal research and writing at the University of Cincinnati Law School. Ms. Fried is currently an Assistant Federal Public Defender at the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Boston, where she represents clients both at trial and on appeal.

Lawrence Oh, Bureau Chief, Major Narcotics Investigations Bureau, Kings County District Attorney’s Office, Brooklyn, NY
Lawrence P. Oh has been an assistant district attorney in Kings County, New York (Brooklyn) for over 15 years, working first in the Appeals Bureau, Trial Bureau, Investigations, and Arraignments and now in his current position as the Bureau Chief of Major Narcotics Investigations Bureau.  In his current position, he oversees development of investigations into narcotics enterprises and litigation and prosecution of criminal defendants resulting from these investigations.    Mr. Oh has argued a dozen appeals and has had felony jury trials, as well as conducted dozens of hearings and supervised over a hundred investigations.  In addition to overseeing a staff of 10 attorneys, Mr. Oh has a staff of 6 detective investigators.   He is a graduate of Stanford University and Columbia University School of Law.

Jonathan Rapping, Founder and Executive Director of the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC), Atlanta, GA
As Founder and Executive Director of the Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC), Mr. Rapping is in charge of training, recruiting and placing new public defenders in the South. In addition to his role with SPDTC, Mr. Rapping is also an Associate Professor of Law at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School where he teaches criminal law and criminal procedure. Just prior to coming to SPDTC, Mr. Rapping was the Director for training and recruitment at the Orleans Public Defenders in New Orleans, LA, where he helped lead the overhaul of the public defender’s office in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Prior to joining the Orleans Public Defenders, he was the Training Director for the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council where he designed and implemented a state-wide public defender system. Immediately after graduating law school Mr. Rapping spent the next 10 years with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, first as a Staff Attorney, and eventually becoming the Training Director. While working for the Public Defender Service, he was an Adjunct Professor for the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught trial advocacy to E. Barrett Prettyman Fellows. Mr. Rapping received a J.D. from the George Washington University National Law Center, a B.A. from the University of Chicago and an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Mr. Rapping is a regular visitor to HLS where he serves as a Visiting Faculty member in the Trial Advocacy Workshop.

Moderated by Lisa D. Williams, Associate Director of OPIA
Lisa D. Williams is OPIA's Associate Director.  She worked as a staff and supervising attorney with the Manhattan office of the Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division, for twenty years, handling and supervising thousands of cases and mentoring many attorneys. In recognition of her work as an accomplished trial lawyer and mentor to many young advocates, Lisa received a Forger Fellowship to attend the Trial Lawyers College. Lisa has been a member of many hiring committees for staff and attorney positions.  More recently, Lisa was a senior trial attorney with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Massachusetts public defender. She has also worked on Capitol Hill and with a civil firm in New York. Lisa advises on all areas of practice while specializing in criminal law, both prosecution and defense.

You can view this year's panel by clicking here. 

Legal Landscapes: Small and Medium Firms

Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 7:00 pm

Anticipated Panelists Include: 

Theodore J. Folkman '00, Hanify & King, Boston, MA
Theodore Folkman concentrates his practice in complex business and commercial litigation. After his clerkship with Judge Ann Aldrich of the U.S. District Court in Cleveland, he was an associate at Hill & Barlow. He has represented clients at trial and on appeal and in arbitrations and mediated settlement negotiations. Mr. Folkman is co-chair of the Massachusetts Practice and Procedure Committee of the Boston Bar Association. He has served as a trustee of Temple Sinai in Brookline, Massachusetts, and as a member of its Executive Committee. Prior to graduation from law school, he worked in the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.

Maya Khuri Plotkin, Dionne & Gass, LLP, Boston, MA
Maya K. Plotkin is Of Counsel at Dionne & Gass LLP in Boston, Massachusetts.  She focuses her practice on commercial real estate development and financing, and also represents corporate clients in connection with corporate structure, mergers and acquisitions and license agreements.  Before joining Dionne & Gass LLP in 2003, Ms. Khuri Plotkin was an associate at Hill & Barlow, P.C. in Boston.  She received her B.A. in English from Bowdoin College and her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.  In 2008, she was named as a “Super Lawyers - Rising Star” for Massachusetts.  she is also actively involved in local issues and has been a Board Member of the Westwood Land Trust since 2006.  Ms. Khuri Plotkin lives in Westwood, Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Daniel M. Rosen '95,  Klein Hornig LLP, Boston, MA
Daniel M. Rosen’s practice focuses on real estate, housing and community development transactions. He has worked with public and private, nonprofit and for-profit clients in a wide range of acquisition, development, management and restructuring activities. Dan has particular expertise in mixed-finance development of public housing, low-income housing tax credits and HUD assistance programs. He has worked to combine numerous federal, state, local and private funding sources in order to allow clients to proceed with innovative, high-impact projects. His real estate experience includes real property purchase and sale transactions, zoning and permitting matters, conveyancing, title insurance, condominiums and contracting for design and construction services. Dan has advised owners and managers of multifamily properties regarding asset management, property management, refinancing and compliance matters throughout the life-cycle of numerous developments.  Mr. Rosen became a partner in Klein Hornig LLP in 2002 after serving four years as Associate General Counsel of The Community Builders, Inc., a national nonprofit real estate developer. Prior to joining The Community Builders, he was an associate in the Washington, DC offices of the law firms of Hawkins, Delafield & Wood and Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy LLP, where he practiced housing law beginning in 1995.

Jahan C. Sagafi '01, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP,  San Francisco, CA
Jahan Sagafi is a partner with Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP in San Francisco, where he prosecutes class actions on behalf of employees and consumers.  He represents victims of large-scale race and gender discrimination in cases such as Gonzalez v. Abercrombie & Fitch, resulting in a $50 million settlement on behalf of roughly 16,000 claimants and a 6-year consent decree governing Abercrombie’s hiring practices and.  He also represents workers seeking to recover compensation for overtime worked for companies including IBM ($65 million settlement), Wells Fargo ($12.8 million settlement and case pending), Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) ($24 million settlement), Cadence Design Systems ($7.7 million settlement), Inter-Con Security Systems ($4 million settlement), and Farmers Insurance.  In addition to representing employees, the firm represents plaintiffs in matters of personal injury and mass torts (Vioxx, Baycol, Fen-Phen, blood factor, tobacco), securities fraud, product defect, antitrust (Microsoft, LCD, SRAM), consumer protection, aviation, environmental and toxic exposure (Unocal, Exxon Valdez), and human rights (Holocaust, braceros).  Mr. Sagafi serves on the executive board of the ACLU of Northern California and is Chair of the American Constitution Society (ACS) San Francisco Bay Area Lawyer Chapter.  Upon graduating from HLS in 2001, Mr. Sagafi served as clerk to the Honorable William W Schwarzer of the Northern District of California.  While at HLS, he was a Senior Editor of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and President of the Board of Student Advisers at Harvard Law School.

Moderated by Lisa D. Williams, Associate Director of OPIA

To view this year's panel, click on this link.  

Legal Landscapes: Non-Profit/Advocacy

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 7:00 pm

Anticipated Panelists Include: 

Amal Bass '06, Staff Attorney, Women's Law Project, Philadelphia, PA
Amal Bass joined the Women’s Law Project (WLP), a public interest firm in Philadelphia devoted to promoting equality and justice for women, as a staff attorney after graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2006.  At WLP, Ms. Bass’s work utilizes several advocacy methods, including direct representation in high impact litigation, amicus brief filings before appellate courts, community education, and public policy advocacy on a variety of gender-related issues.  Recently, Ms. Bass has worked on the civil rights of sexual assault victims, the role of marital and socioeconomic status in custody proceedings, discrimination against female athletes by high schools and universities, and pregnancy discrimination in employment.  While in law school, Ms. Bass interned at WLP and the Homeless Advocacy Project in Philadelphia.  At Harvard, she co-chaired the Women’s Issues Committee of the Women’s Law Association, the Professional Development Committee of the Women’s Law Association, and the Public Interest Auction.  Ms. Bass received her undergraduate degree in History, magna cum laude, from Yale University in 2003.

Steven Choi ’04, Executive Director, Empowering the Korean American Community (YKASEC) , Flushing, NY
Steve Choi is the Executive Director of YKASEC – Empowering the Korean American Community, which has grassroots organizing, advocacy, service, and education initiatives designed to empower community members. Mr. Choi previously directed the Korean Community Law Project, which provided free legal services to low-wage Korean immigrants – the first such project of its kind. Since September 2004, the Project has launched over 25 lawsuits together with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), representing more than 50 workers whose rights have been violated. Through litigation, the Project has helped secure nearly $700,000 in total settlements, court victories, and awards for these workers. Mr. Choi was formerly a staff attorney at AALDEF, and his legal experience includes working for the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. He received his B.A. from Stanford University in History, and his J.D. from HLS. Mr. Choi has received numerous awards, including the Skirnick Public Interest Fellowship, the Skadden Fellowship, the Asian American Lawyers of Massachusetts (AALAM) Scholarship, and the HLS Asian Pacific American Alumni Award.

Ellen Shachter, Senior Attorney, Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services (part of Greater Boston Legal Services), Cambridge, MA
Ellen Shachter is a senior attorney at Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services, part of Greater Boston Legal Services. She has over 18 years of experience representing low income families and individuals on housing and public benefits matter with a particular emphasis on access to public and subsidized housing and homelessness prevention.  In addition to providing individual representation Ellen has represented countless tenant associations in negotiations with pubic and subsidized housing providers over admissions policies, rent policies, relocation policies and eviction practices.  Ellen has actively participated in numerous administrative and legislative campaigns designed to increase the access of immigrants, the homeless and victims of domestic violence to state and federally funding subsidized housing and public benefits programs and to increase funding for the development  of new affordable housing on the state and municipal levels. Ellen has also engaged in extensive training of tenants, lay advocates, and attorneys at the national, state, and local levels on housing and public benefits issues and is a regular trainer for  Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) and the Massachusetts Bar Association.  She is also author of various materials on tenants rights, including Legal Tactics II - Finding and Securing Affordable Housing and Accessing Affordable Housing for Low Income People  both published by MCLE.

Reginald Shuford, Senior Staff Attorney/Attorneys of Color Recruitment & Retention Officer, Racial Justice Program, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation,  New York, NY
Reggie Shuford is an attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program, where he works in constitutional and impact litigation. In his fourteen-plus years at the ACLU, he has concentrated on racial justice and national security issues, serving as lead attorney in matters such as racial profiling, both pre- and post-9/11, the school to prison pipeline and affirmative action. Reggie is the first person to hold the position of Attorneys of Color Recruitment and Retention Officer, created in 2003 as a way to further the ACLU’s commitment to a diverse legal staff. He has authored numerous petitions and briefs for cases that were presented to the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with matters of discrimination, the Equal Protection Clause and First and Fourth Amendment rights. He has published articles related to racial profiling, affirmative action, and violence in the African-American community. Prior to coming to the ACLU, Reggie worked in private practice in Raleigh, NC, with the firm Richard Schwartz & Associates, specializing in education law. Just after graduating law school, he clerked with the Hon. Henry E. Frye of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Reggie is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law, in Chapel Hill, where he was his graduating class president. In October 2009, Reggie received UNC Law’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Moderated by: Professor David Grossman '88, Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Clinical Professor of Law, HLS

You can see a recording of this year's panel here.