The Substantive Law Conference
July 21 to 24, 2004
The University of California
Los Angeles, California
DE NEVE PLAZA MEETING ROOM LAYOUT
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TOM BRADLEY INTERNATIONAL HALL ROOM LAYOUT
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UCLA CAMPUS MAP: DENEVE PLAZA AND TOM BRADLEY HALL
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JOIN NLADA TODAY!
NLADA is the national, collective voice for civil legal aid and indigent defense advocates.
Founded in 1911, it is the nation's oldest and largest national nonprofit membership
organization exclusively devoted to equal access to justice. Join NLADA today – working
together, we can make a difference!
Training and Conferences
NLADA offers comprehensive, affordable training and professional development
opportunities throughout the year for managers, staff, and clients in the civil legal
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Add your voice to the powerful and effective advocacy work of NLADA before Congress,
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VISIT NLADA’S WEB SITE
Project for the Future of Equal Justice
A joint initiative of NLADA and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the
Project’s mission is to expand and strengthen the nationwide partnership for equal
justice. Project initiatives include: the Civil Rights and Racial Justice Initiative; and the
Campaign for Equal Access: Bringing Justice Home, which feature communications tool
kits and trainings to help legal aid professionals communicate more effectively.
Networking and Professional Development
Access the resources and expertise of your peers across the country by attending toprated trainings and conferences and by joining NLADA e-mail discussions, member
sections, affinity groups and committees.
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Stay informed about the latest developments in the equal justice community through
NLADA’s comprehensive publications. Plus, find the information and tools you need now
on NLADA’s new Web site, www.nlada.org -- including the E-Library (a document
database), the National Training Calendar, a free, interactive job bank, and much more.
WWW.NLADA.ORG
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The NLADA Insurance Program, a not-for-profit subsidiary of NLADA, offers a wide array
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competitive prices, and currently serves more than 800 organizations and individuals.
Technical Support and Capacity Building
NLADA supports the work of its members with technical assistance on legal topics, as
well as, management and planning issues, development of funding strategies,
enhancement of client services, conducting regional training, and working collaboratively .
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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association
would like to thank the 2004 Substantive Law
Conference Sponsor:
The
NLADA
Insurance
Program
NLADA gratefully acknowledges the support of
this organization for this conference and other
NLADA training events.
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General Conference Information
Going Back to California!
We are glad you decided to join us for this exciting professional
development and networking opportunity. If you
have questions or need assistance during the
conference, please see the staff at the
registration desk. Again, we are happy
you decided to take part in the
conference and look forward to working with
you!
NLADA Substantive Law Staff - Don Saunders,
Cynthia Works, Natalie Crane, Stacy Green, Aiyana
Bullock, Camille Holmes, Chuck Wynder, Kate Lang, Laura Johnston
Badges
Badges, obtained when you register, must be worn to gain entrance
to all workshops and functions.
Continuing Legal Education
NLADA has applied for accreditation in most states with mandatory
CLE. A blue CLE instruction sheet and three-part Certificate of
Attendance/Application can be found in your registration packet.
Individual state forms are available at the conference registration
desk. Please be familiar with the CLE requirements in your state. If you
are an attorney from Delaware, Oklahoma or California, please
remember to stop by the registration desk to sign the mandatory signin sheets. Please complete the NLADA CLE form and return it to the
registration desk or mail it to NLADA by August 6, 2004 so that we may
maintain a record of your attendance.
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Evaluations
Your evaluation of this conference, including suggestions and
comments, is important to NLADA, and will help us plan future events.
An Overall Evaluation Form is included in your registration packet. In
addition, a Workshop Evaluation Form will be provided at each
workshop session, and used to evaluate specific faculty and session
topics. This information will be used to design both the content of
future conferences, as well as the recruitment of faculty. Please
complete all evaluation forms and turn them in at NLADA's registration
desk at your earliest convenience (extra forms are available at the
registration desk). We appreciate your assistance!
Meals on Campus
For those who did not purchase a meal package as part of their
registration, tickets for individual meals are available at the front
desk of DeNeve (not the cafeteria) for approximately:
Breakfast $9*, Lunch $11* or Dinner $13*
*Prices may vary. Please confirm prices at campus front desk.
The DeNeve Plaza Dinning hours are as follows:
Breakfast
Continental Service
Lunch
Limited Lunch Service
Dinner
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7:00 am – 10:00 am
10:00 am – 11:30 am
11:30 am – 2:00 pm
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
WEDNESDAY, July 21, 2004
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Conference Pre-Registration
DeNeve Ballroom B
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Opening “Hurray for Hollywood”
Reception and Networking Event
Sunset Village Grand Horizon
Welcome by Cynthia Works
Director of Training and Education, NLADA
Yvonne Mariajimenez
Deputy Director, Neighborhood Legal
Services of Los Angeles
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THURSDAY, July 22, 2004
7:00 am to 8:30 am
Breakfast
DeNeve Plaza Dining
8:00 am to 8:30 am
Coffee Service
DeNeve Plaza Foyer
7:00 am to 5:00 pm
Conference Registration
DeNeve Ballroom B
8:30 am to 10:00 am
Welcome & Introduction of Keynote Speaker
DeNeve Auditorium
Don Saunders, Director, Civil Legal Services Division, NLADA
Bruce Iwasaki, Executive Director, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Keynote Speaker: CONSTANCE L. RICE
Connie Rice, co-director of The Advancement Project, is
known for success in tackling problems of inequity and
exclusion. She has received more than 50 major awards
for her work in expanding opportunity and advancing
multi-racial democracy.
Rice graduated from Harvard College in 1978. She won
the Root Tilden Public Interest Scholarship to New York
university School of Law, where she earned her law
degree in 1984. After law school, she served as law clerk
to the Honorable Damon J. Keith, judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and worked at Morrison & Foerster
as a litigation associate. In 1991, she joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and
became co-director of LDF’s Los Angeles Office in 1996. The credential she
prizes most, however, is her first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
As a litigator, Rice has filed class action civil rights cases redressing police
misconduct, race and sex discrimination and unfair public policy in
transportation, probation and public housing. She filed a landmark case on
behalf of low-income bus riders that resulted in a mandate that more than 2
billion dollars be spent to improve the bus system. And in 1999, Rice launched a
coalition lawsuit that won $750 million for new school construction in Los Angeles
– money previously slated for less crowded, more affluent suburban school
districts. In these and other cases, Rice has led multi-racial coalitions of lawyers
and clients to win more than $4 billion worth of injunctive relief and damages.
In her non-litigation work in the 1990s, Rice served as counsel to the Watts gang
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truce and spearheaded a statewide campaign to save equal opportunity
programs. Mayors Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan appointed Rice to the
governing board of Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power where she
served as president and enacted contracting reforms and environmental
advances. In 1998, Rice helped lead a successful campaign to place
aggressive public school reformers on the governing board for Los Angeles’
public schools.
In 1998, the Los Angeles Times designated her one of 24 leaders considered the
“most experienced, civic-minded and thoughtful people on the subject of Los
Angeles.” And in October 2000, California LawBusiness named her, along with
Governor Gray Davis and Warren Christopher, as one of California’s top 10 most
influential lawyers. In May 2003, Rice received an honorary doctor of laws
degree from Occidental College.
Frequently interviewed by both the local and national media, Rice has
appeared on 60 Minutes, The Lehrer News Hour, Nightline, The Oprah Winfrey
Show, ABC’s This Week, Politically Incorrect, Realtime and dozens of cable,
network, web and radio programs. Reporters for major publications regularly
consult and quote her. Recent books that note her work are Nicholas Lemann’s
The Big Test; Color-Blind by Ellis Cose; Race Rules by Michael Eric Dyson, and The
Color Bind by Lydia Chavez.
Rice is a co-founder of The Advancement Project, a public policy and legal
action group that supports organizations working to end community problems
and address racial, class and other barriers to opportunity. Hallmarks of her work
include solving problems, reducing conflict, turning opponents into allies, and
winning.
10:00 am to 10:30 am
Break
DeNeve Plaza Foyer
Bradley Hall 2nd Floor
10:30 am to 12noon
Bradley Hall Room 216
Basics of SSI Financial Eligibility
This workshop will offer an overview of the basic concepts of SSI financial
eligibility. It is designed for two audiences: 1) those who will participate in the
Social Security Law track, but are new to the field, and 2) practitioners in other
fields (e.g. housing, consumer, family) who would like a better knowledge of the
impact of their work on their clients’ SSI eligibility and amount of benefits. It is not
designed for the experienced SSI advocate.
Rachael Henderson, Georgia Legal Services Program; Gerry McIntyre, National
Senior Citizens Law Center
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10:30 am to 12 noon
DeNeve A4 Lounge
Community Problem Solving Lawyering: An Overview
This workshop will examine the community lawyering approach to solving
intransigent community problems, ultimately achieving life changing results for
clients and building stronger and better served communities. These approaches
involve working directly with the community, engaging them as active players in
working for the results they want to achieve, analyzing the role of race in
communities, using the media and much more. We will highlight exciting new
approaches to achieving sustainable change in low-income communities.
Camille Holmes, NLADA/CLASP Project for the Future of Equal Justice; Amelia
Nieto, Centro Shalom, Long Beach, CA; Elena Popp, Legal Assistance
Foundation of Los Angeles
10:30 am to 12 noon
Bradley Hall Room 215
Court Access for Civil Rights Litigants: Developments Concerning Sovereign
Immunity and Private Enforcement
This workshop will provide attendees with an overview of how Supreme Court
jurisprudence is affecting court access for private individuals, focusing on the
Rehnquist court's proactive invalidation of all or parts of federal civil rights laws.
Recent precedent setting decision involving sovereign immunity and Congress'
authority pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, Spending and Commerce
Clause will be highlighted.
Ed King, National Senior Citizens Law Center; Jane Perkins, National Health Law
Program; Lauren Saunders, National Senior Citizens Law Center
10:30 am to 12 noon
DeNeve A3 Lounge
Representing Clients with Food Stamp Fraud or Overissuance Problems
States are increasingly accusing food stamp applicants and recipients of
“intentional program violations (IPVs)” or fraud. Some coerce clients into
agreeing to be disqualified. This workshop will provide practical approaches to
defending clients facing allegations of IPVs or overissuances.
David Super, Center on Budge and Policy Priorities
10:30 am to 12 noon
Bradley Hall Room 217
A Primer on Indian Law and How it Affects Your Practice
Per capita, Native Americans make up a disproportionate share of the legal aid
community’s client population. Indian law is a complex legal field but one that
has a daily impact on Native Americans regardless of their income level, even
when they do not live on Indian reservations. This workshop will provide an
overview of basic Indian law concepts and an understanding of how to use and
recognize these issues.
Mike Pfeffer, California Indian Legal Services; Paul Thibeault, Anishnabe Legal
Services
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10:30 am to 12 noon
DeNeve A6 Lounge
Understanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and
Undertaking Effective Advocacy
This workshop will provide valuable information for advocates whose clients may
qualify for SCHOP, an important means of obtaining health care coverage for
low and middle-income children. Participants will learn the basics of the SCHIP
Program, obtain information on recent developments and find out how to
conduct effective advocacy for their SCHIP clients.
Manjusha Kulkarni, National Health Law Program
10:30 am to 12 noon
DeNeve Ballroom B
Wait a Minute II: Slowing Down Criminal Activity Eviction Cases to Find the Truth
(The Sequel)
Following the decision in HUD v. Rucker, we will discuss the required eviction
elements for each program and relevant defenses, using examples to aid in
issue spotting. We also will discuss efforts at federal, state, and local levels to
develop more appropriate eviction policies.
Larry McDonough, Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis, Inc.
12 noon to 1:00 pm
Lunch
DeNeve Plaza Dining
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 216
Civil Justice Leadership is Everyone’s Business I (of II)
This two-part workshop will use the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) to help
participants measure and improve their leadership practices. The Leadership
Practices Inventory is the best selling and most trusted leadership tool of its
generation. Developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, co-authors of The
Leadership Challenge, this celebrated instrument approaches leadership as a
measurable, learnable, and teachable set of behaviors. Come learn how to
become a leader who can:
 Model the Way
 Inspire a Shared Vision
 Challenge the Process
 Enable Others to Act
 Encourage the Heart
“Leadership is not the private reserve of a lucky few. It is an observable and
learnable set of skills and abilities that are applicable at all levels.” Jim Kouzes and
Barry Posner, co-authors of The Leadership Challenge.
Chuck Wynder, National Legal Aid and Defender Association
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
DeNeve Ballroom B
Educational Advocacy for Foster and Delinquent Youth
Who holds the educational rights and who should? How can the courtroom
serve as forceful forum in ensuring that children receive an appropriate
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education and graduate from high school? The National Children's Law Network
has prepared a PowerPoint and challenging vignettes that will give participants
legal skills in educational advocacy.
Ines Kuperschmit, Public Counsel Law Center; Virginia (Jenny) Weisz, Public
Counsel
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
DeNeve A4 Lounge
Facilitation: A Key Lawyering and Community Problem Solving Skill
Working with groups is inevitable when working with communities. Helping
groups make informed strategic decisions is a skill and an art. Facilitation is a
tool for helping groups work together effectively. This session will provide
introductory training on group facilitation skills. Participants will learn some of the
elements of good facilitation – listening, questioning, brainstorming techniques,
neutral summary, establishing a safe environment – and practice applying a few
of those techniques.
Cass Watters, Inland County Legal Services, Riverside, California; Camille
Holmes, NLADA/CLASP Project for the Future of Equal Justice
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 217
Keeping Tenants in Slum Housing
At some point in litigation, every slum housing attorney is faced with a set of
basic questions: (1) can the building be rehabilitated; (2) how will rehabilitation
affect the tenants if they remain in the building during renovation; (3) do the
tenants need to be relocated; and (4) if the tenants leave the building, is there
any way to preserve their right to return and at what rental rates. Join us for a
series of case studies that examine these questions as we discuss how to use
receiverships, forced change of ownership, unfair business practices litigation,
lead-safe work plans, and temporary and emergency relocation laws as a tools
to make housing decent, safe, sanitary and affordable.
Elissa Barrett, Bet Tzedek Legal Services; Cris Armenta, Van Etten Suzumoto &
Becket; Philip Shaknis, Environmental Law Foundation; Tai Glenn, Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
DeNeve A3 Lounge
Medical Debt Advocacy
Medical Debt Advocacy is an increasing problem for low-income clients as well
as low-income communities. Existing programs that should keep our clients from
incurring debt often do so ineffectively. Legal services attorneys can use a
variety of defenses as well as take proactive steps in the community to address
medical debt issues. This workshop will help give advocates a handle on
effectively helping their clients and communities avoid and get out of medical
debt.
Randolph Boyle, National Health Law Program
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1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 215
"Special Status:" Expanding SSI Eligibility under PRWORA and the BBA
This workshop will discuss recent federal court action in order to teach
advocates how to use the "special status" provision in current law to expand
eligibility to many of these immigrants, with a focus on Haitians and Cubans.
Also, advocates will be taught ways to successfully present arguments illustrating
how vulnerable minorities can receive benefits based on the "plain meaning" of
federal law.
Vivian Chavez, Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.; Lizel Gonzalez, Legal
Services of Greater Miami, Inc.
1:15 pm to 2:45 pm
DeNeve A6 Lounge
Updates on Women's Health Policy Law Workshop
This workshop will cover developments in women's reproductive health law and
policy, including: legislative activity and court decisions regarding
contraceptive equity, availability of emergency contraception in emergency
rooms and a proposed resolution on maintaining reproductive health access in
Medicaid. Advocates will learn about new developments and strategies being
implemented.
Susan Berke Fogel, Women’s Rights Attorney and Consultant; Lourdes Rivera,
National Health Law Program
1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Native American Track Begins
TO BE DETERMINED
2:45 pm to 3:15 pm
Break
DeNeve Plaza Foyer
Bradley Hall 2nd Floor
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
DeNeve Ballroom B
Child Care for Low Income Families
This workshop will explore issues around access to
childcare for low-income families. Topics will include:
the subsidy program and the law governing it;
California and other state implementation of subsidized childcare; childcare
sanction protections under TANF; childcare licensing, and issues around informal
care.
Sherry Leiwant, Legal Momentum (NOW Legal Defense and Educational Fund);
Eve Hershcopf, Child Care Law Center
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3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 216
Civil Justice Leadership is Everyone’s Business II (of II)
This two-part workshop will use the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) to help
participants measure and improve their leadership practices. The Leadership
Practices Inventory is the best selling and most trusted leadership tool of its
generation. Developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, co-authors of The
Leadership Challenge, this celebrated instrument approaches leadership as a
measurable, learnable, and teachable set of behaviors. Come learn how to
become a leader who can:
 Model the Way
 Inspire a Shared Vision
 Challenge the Process
 Enable Others to Act
 Encourage the Heart
“Leadership is not the private reserve of a lucky few. It is an observable and
learnable set of skills and abilities that are applicable at all levels.” Jim Kouzes and
Barry Posner, co-authors of The Leadership Challenge.
Chuck Wynder, National Legal Aid and Defender Association
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
DeNeve A4 Lounge
Healthy Homes: Building a Movement for Healthier Low-Income Housing
This workshop will help give advocates a handle on effectively helping their
clients and communities avoid and get out of medical debt. Existing programs
that should keep our clients from incurring debt often do so effectively. Legal
services attorneys can use a variety of defenses as well as take proactive steps
in the community to address medical debt issues.
Angela Beltran, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles; Kathleen Overr, Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles; Elena Popp, Eviction Defense Network; Greg Spiegel,
Western Center on Law and Poverty
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 215
How LSC Programs Can Assist Immigrant Victims of Crime
This workshop will discuss the latest legal developments in representing
immigrant victims of crime and share strategies to collaborate with local policy
and community programs. The issues covered will include the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of
2003, the Kennedy Amendment that permits LSC grantees to represent
immigrant domestic violence survivors and LSC’s rule governing immigrant
eligibility for legal services.
Rosa M. Fregoso, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA); Sheila Neville,
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA); Nancy J. Reyes-Rubi, Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA)
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3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
DeNeve A6 Lounge
No Second Chance: Excluding People from Housing
Human Rights watch all present the findings of national research on the
exclusion of people with criminal records from public housing. Workshop
participants will gain an understanding of federal law and policy and local
practice in this area, as well as practical skills for representing clients who have
been denied because of their criminal records.
Corinne Carey, Human Rights Watch
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
To Be Determined
Rural Advocacy and Issues
Rural service delivery areas present unique challenges and opportunities. This
workshop is targeted to advocates who are not attending the rural track, but
are interested in rural delivery issues. The panelists will discuss the challenges
affecting rural service delivery, the approaches their programs have taken to
address some of those challenges and projects in several substantive areas
including housing, health, domestic violence, land loss prevention and family
farm issues.
Stephon Bowens, The Land Loss Prevention Project; Stephen Carpenter, Farmers
Legal Action Group; Steve Xanthopoulos, West Tennessee Legal Services; Linda
Zazove, Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
DeNeve A3 Lounge
Victims of Sexual Assault
This workshop will identify the scope of sexual assault survivors’ civil legal needs,
the intersections between civil and criminal prosecutions, how serving sexual
assault survivors may differ from serving other clients and how legal aid
programs can more effectively respond to sexual assault survivors’ broad range
of civil legal needs.
Daniela Letz, Sexual Assault Resource Center in Portland, Oregon; Jessica Mindlin,
National Crime Victim Law Institute and for the Institute’s Center for Law and
Public Policy on Sexual Violence (CLPPS)
3:15 pm to 4:45 pm
Bradley Hall Room 217
Welfare 101
This workshop is a brief overview of the primary benefits programs (TANF, Food
Stamps and Medical) and current issues. This session is designed to give new or
non-welfare advocates a sense of the scope and coverage of the major aid
programs and some issue spotting capacity.
Jodie Berger, Legal Services of Northern California
3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Native American Track Continued
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To Be Determined
5:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Dinner
DeNeve Plaza Dining
5:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Bus to Santa Monica
Cost: $10
Venture out of Los Angeles and visit beautiful Santa Monica! This picturesque city
is well known for its California cuisine and oceanfront mansions of the rich and
famous. Visit Palisades Park, Muscle Beach and Chess Park. The bus will depart
outside DeNeve at 5:30 pm and drop off attendees on Ocean Avenue in
between the Third Street Promenade, which is in the heart of specialty shopping,
theatres and the revitalized Santa Monica Pier.
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FRIDAY, July 23, 2004
7:30 am to 5:00 pm
Conference and Continuing Legal
Education Registration
DeNeve Ballroom B
7:00 am to 8:30 am
Breakfast
DeNeve Plaza Dining
8:30 am to 10:00 am
Track Sessions Begin
Civil Rights Track
Community Economic
Development Track
Consumer Law Track
Federal Housing Law Track
Health Law Track
Immigration Track
Native American Law Track
Rural Track
Social Security Law Track
Welfare Advocacy Track
Women and Family Law Track
10:00 am to 10:30 am
DeNeve A6 Lounge
Bradley Hall Rooms 213 and 214
Bradley Hall Room 215
Bradley Hall Room 216
DeNeve A4 Lounge
DeNeve B2 Lounge
DeNeve A3Lounge
DeNeve B3 Lounge
DeNeve Ballroom B
DeNeve Ballroom A
Bradley Hall Room 217
Break
DeNeve Plaza Ballroom
Bradley Hall 2nd Floor
10:30 am to Noon Track Sessions Continue (same rooms)
Please see Friday at 8:30 am
Noon to 1:00 pm
Lunch
DeNeve Plaza Dining
1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Track Sessions Continue (same rooms)
Please see Friday at 8:30 am
3:00 pm to 3:30 pm
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Break
DeNeve Plaza Foyer
Bradley Hall 2nd Floor
3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Track Sessions Continue (same rooms)
Please see Friday at 8:30 am
5:00 p.m.
L.A. on Your Own
5:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Dinner
DeNeve Plaza Dining
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SATURDAY, July 24, 2004
7:00 am to 8:30 am
Breakfast
DeNeve Plaza Dining
8:00 am to 11:00 am
Conference & Continuing Legal
Education
Sunset Village South Bay
8:30 am to 10:00 am
Track Sessions Continue (same rooms)
Please see Friday at 8:30 am
10:00 am to 10:30 am
Break
DeNeve Foyer
Bradley Hall 2nd Floor
10:30 am to 12 noon
Final Track Sessions (same rooms)
Please see Friday at 8:30 am
12noon to 1:30 PM
Lunch
DeNeve Plaza Dining
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Dinner
DeNeve Plaza Dining
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SUNDAY, July 25, 2004
7:00 am to 8:30 am
Continental Breakfast
DeNeve Plaza Dining
7:00 am to 11:00 am
HOUSING CHECK OUT
Please check out of your room
by 11:00 am
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PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
Abby Abinanti is currently a Superior Court Commissioner in California for the
City and County of San Francisco assigned to the Unified Family Court. She
graduated from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1973. Among her
tribal court experience, Abby served as Chief Magistrate, Court of Indian
Offenses for the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation from 1983-1986, as an
Appellate Court Judge by appointment for Colorado River Indian Tribe in 1994,
as a Judge by special appointment with the Hopi Tribal Court 1986, and a
Judge by special appointment with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Court in 1985.
Romina Arguedas Pailey is a Staff Attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services of
Los Angeles County. She joined NLS in August 2003 and oversees the operations
of the NLS Immigration Unit. Romina graduated from Hofstra University in 1994
with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Spanish. She received a JD from
Tulane Law School in 1998. Prior to joining NLS, she was a staff attorney at the
Central American Resource Center, and an associate with Holguin & Garfield,
representing union members through an employer-funded prepaid legal
services plan.
M. Cris Armenta is a commercial litigator with slum housing, rehabilitation and
receivership experience. She currently serves as senior counsel at Van Etten
Suzumoto & Becket in Santa Monica, CA. She litigates in the area of real estate,
intellectual property and consumer class action law.
Elisa Barrett is the Director of Housing Conditions Project at Bet Tzedek Legal
Services. Her housing experience includes litigation and mediation for lowincome tenants seeking to focus the sage rehabilitation of slum buildings and
preserve reasonable rents, as well as counsel and advise to city government
agencies on the creation of a Primary Renovation and Temporary Relocation
Ordinance designed to balance the need for reinvestment in an aging housing
stock with the need to minimize displacement of established tenant
communities.
Benjamin Beach is an Equal Justice Works Fellow with the Community Economic
Development Unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). His
fellowship project helps low-income residents of Los Angeles and Long Beach
hold economic development accountable to the needs of the community by
engaging developers and government in a process that builds community
power and achieves community goals. Ben is a graduate of NYU School of Law,
and clerked in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Angela Beltran is a paralegal/health promoter with Legal Aid Foundation of
Los Angeles, who has many years experience working with tenants. She
conducts community outreach and education in LEAD awareness, tenant rights,
housing and health hazards. She is also a member of the Healthy Homes
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Collaborative of Southern California.
Jodie Berger is Regional Counsel for the Legal Services of Northern California
(LSNC). She assists LSNC staff and advocates statewide by co-counseling,
mentoring, providing technical assistance, strategizing case and conducting
trainings.
Susan Berk Fogel is an attorney who specializes in the rights of women and
adolescents, with a particular focus on health policy and reproductive freedom,
and health access for low-income people. Ms. Fogel develops projects and
consults with non-profit organizations, governments, legal services and
academics institutions to improve the well being of women and to empower
them to realize their life goals. She was formerly the Legal Director of the
California Women's Law Center, the Breast Cancer Legal Clinic, and consulted
with the Los Angeles Unified School District to design the most comprehensive
school district policy in California to protect the civil rights of pregnant and
parenting teens.
Randolph T. Boyle is a staff attorney in the Los Angeles office of the National
Health Law Program. Where he works on Medicaid/Medi-Cal, medical debt
problems, managed care, HIV/AIDS issues, and consumer health law education.
Previously, he worked 6 ½ years as a staff attorney for California Rural Legal
Assistance in California's Central Valley. Thereafter, he served as the Debtors'
Rights Attorney and Outreach Attorney for AIDS Project Los Angeles and the
Executive Director of Fair Housing Congress of Southern California. Mr. Boyle is a
graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the UCLA School of Law.
Sylvia Brennan serves as NHLP’s Director of Government Relations and staff
attorney in the Washington, D.C. office. She also directs and carries out NHLP’s
D.C. Public Housing Resident Empowerment Project. Ms. Brennan joined NHLP in
May of 2003 with an extensive background in housing litigation and legislative
advocacy. Following her graduation from Catholic University’s Columbus School
of Law in 1991, Ms. Brennan began to work for Legal Services of Northern
Virginia, a civil legal aid program. During her 11 years at LSNV, Ms. Brennan
served as managing attorney of her local branch office and also headed her
program’s regional housing task force.
Maeve Elise Brown joined NHLP in April of 2002, and has 16 years of experience
in community-based lawyering on housing and other economic issues
confronting low-income urban households. Ms. Brown, who is based in NHLP’s
Oakland office, directs the Section 8 Homeownership Initiative and has been
responsible for developing, starting up and managing the Predatory Lending
Initiative. A skilled litigator, trainer and advocate, Ms. Brown specializes in other
housing issues such as voucher utilization and housing discrimination, and also
serves as the recruiter and in-house advisor for legal interns and volunteers. Prior
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to joining NHLP, Ms. Brown directed the Housing and Economic Development
units of the East Bay Community Law Center, which is a clinical legal services
program affiliated with Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at
Berkeley. A native of Los Angeles, Ms. Brown received her A.B. and J.D. degrees
from UCLA. Before moving to the Bay Area, she served as an attorney with the
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
Brad Caftel has been a lawyer on staff of the National Economic Development
and Law Center since 1976, where he currently serves as General Counsel. He
has extensive experience in providing legal, tax, organizational, and strategic
planning advice to community- and faith-based organizations on their internal
development and operations, business and real estate development, and
community development finance strategies. His experience includes: assisting in
corporate formation, training directors and officers, advising boards and staff,
preparing contracts, leases, and other agreements in the development process,
forming community development credit unions, micro-enterprise loan funds and
community development loan and loan guarantee programs.
Corinne Carey is a researcher with the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch in
New York. Prior to her work with HRW, Corinne founded and directed the Harm
Reduction Law Project where she litigated housing, family, and criminal court
cases on behalf of people struggling with addiction. She has conducted
numerous trainings for services providers, attorneys and former and active drug
users. Corinne graduated summa cum laude from the University of Buffalo
School of Law.
Eric Carlson is an attorney in the Los Angeles office of the National Senior
Citizens Law Center (NSCLC). Mr. Carlson specializes in the law governing longterm care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted living facilities. He
counsels attorney from across the country in issues relating to long-term care,
and also participates in litigation on residents' behalf. He was co-counsel in
Podolsky v. First Healthcare Corp., 50 Cal. App. 4th 632, 58 Cal. Rptr. 2d 89 (1996(,
which established that the guarantee agreements that had been used routinely
by nursing facilities were illegal and unenforceable. Mr. Carlson is the author of
numerous publications and articles, including "Long Term Care Advocacy," the
leading legal treatise on long-term care issues. He is the principal author of
NSCLC's Nursing Home Law Letter, a comprehensive bimonthly summary of
developments in long-term care.
Stephen Carpenter has been an attorney at Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc.
(FLAG) in St. Paul, Minnesota since 1993. FLAG is a nonprofit law firm that works
on behalf of financially distressed family farmers nation-wide. Carpenter's work
at FLAG has focused on debtor-credit issues, disaster assistance, Farm Service
Agency lending, discrimination in agricultural lending, contract agricultural
production, direct marketing, and organic and sustainable agriculture. Mr.
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Carpenter received a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from Drury
College in Springfield, Missouri.
Vivian Chavez has worked for LSDMI since 1998 as a staff attorney in the EES unit,
which mainly handles Unemployment Compensation, SSI, Food Stamps and
Medicaid cases. She also is the Directing Attorney for the South Dade Law
Center, one of LSGMI’s outreach offices. She received her B.A. from FIU, and her
J.D. from Loyola University – New Orleans.
Gene Coffey is a staff attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of the National
Senior Citizens Law Center. His primary focus is on the tracking developments in
state Medicaid programs and litigating against program cuts. His article State
Medicaid Cuts—Lack of Method to their Madness appeared in
November/December issue of NAELA News and he is currently involved in
federal lawsuits in Oregon and Kentucky challenging the states' revisions to their
Medicaid nursing home eligibility standards. Prior to joining NSCLC in 2002, Mr.
Coffey spent five years working for Legal Services of Northern Virginia.
Sarah Deer is a Staff Attorney with the Tribal Law & Policy Institute in West
Hollywood, California, and Lecturer in Law at UCLA Law School. She is an online
Instructor of Tribal Legal Studies at UCLA Extension. Formerly, Sarah worked as a
Grant Program Specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Office on
Violence Against Women in Washington, D.C. Sarah received her J.D. with Tribal
Lawyer Certificate from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1999 and her
B.A. in Women’s Studies and Philosophy from the University of Kansas in 1995.
While a law student, Sarah was employed as Assistant Director of Douglas
County Rape-Victim Survivor Service, Inc. in Lawrence, Kansas, where she
worked with victims of sexual violence at Haskell Indian Nations University. Sarah
serves on advisory boards for numerous anti-violence organizations and projects,
including the Legal Resource Center to End Violence Against Women and the
Center on Law and Public Policy on Sexual Violence. In February 2003, Sarah
was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn to serve on the Los Angeles
City/County Commission on Native American Indian Affairs. Sarah is a co-author
of two textbooks on tribal law to be published in Summer 2004 by Alta Mira Press:
Introduction to Tribal Legal Studies and Tribal Criminal Law and Procedure.
Benjamin Diehl is a Deputy Attorney General in the Consumer Law Section of
the California Attorney General’s Office, where his responsibilities include
investigating and prosecuting predatory lending and related cases. Prior to
accepting his current position, he was a staff attorney and Skadden Foundation
Fellow at Bet Tzedek Legal Services from 1997 – 2002, where he specialized in
real estate property and predatory lending matters, as well as related areas of
consumer law. He is a 1997 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of
Law.
Page 26
Aimee Durfee is the Coordinator of Californians for Family Economic SelfSufficiency (CFESS), a project of the National Economic Development & Law
Center (NEDLC). CFESS is a statewide policy coalition made up if community
colleges, grassroots organizations, welfare agencies, workforce development
agencies, women’s organizations and others advocating for polices that
increase access to higher education for women on welfare, and that invest in
high-wage job training. Ms. Durfee received her law degree from UC Berkeley
Boalt Hall School of Law, her Bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College,
and is a licensed California attorney. Prior to joining NEDLC, Ms. Durfee was the
Ruth Chance Law Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates, where she worked on
gender discrimination employment litigation, specifically focusing her efforts on
issues affecting women in the trades.
Matthew L.M. Fletcher recently joined the UND School of Law faculty as an
assistant professor and the new Director of the Northern Plains Indian Law
Center. Professor Fletcher is a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa
and Chippewa Indians and a 1997 graduate of Michigan Law School. He is an
appellate judge for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians Tribal Court,
formed in 2003. He has worked as in-house counsel for the Grand Traverse Band,
the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, and the Suquamish
Tribe. He has published articles on Indian law and social justice in the Michigan
Journal of Race & Law, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the Vermont
Law Review, the Journal of Law & Inequality, and the American Indian Law
Review. A number of his articles will also appear in forthcoming issues of the
Cardozo Public Law, Policy, and Ethics Journal, the North Dakota Law Review,
the Washington University Journal of Law and Public Policy, the University of
Detroit Mercy Law Review, and others. He will be teaching Federal Indian Law,
Tribal Law, and Contracts in the 2004-2005 school year.
Rosa M. Fregoso is a Senior Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
(LAFLA). She earned her Bachelor’s degree from University of California, San
Diego (UCSD) in 1988. She earned a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies
and a law degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1992. In 1992, Ms.
Fregoso obtained a Berkeley Law Foundation fellowship to work at LAFLA and
initiate a program to work with immigrant victims of domestic violence. Since
that date, she has coordinated the “Battered Immigrant Women's Project”
which focuses on providing free legal assistance to battered immigrant women
in filing self-petitions under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), U and T
visa applications pursuant to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act (VTVPA) and Gender based asylum applications. Ms. Fregoso conducts
extensive community outreach and education to battered women's shelters,
community agencies, and Bar Associations on the legal rights of battered
immigrant women. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the
California Alliance Against Domestic Violence (CAADV).
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Jerry Gardner is an attorney with more than 25 years of experience working with
Indian tribes, tribal court systems, and victims of crime in Indian country. He is the
founding Executive Director of the Tribal Law and Policy Institute - an Indian
owned and operated non-profit corporation established in 1996 to design and
deliver education, research, training, and technical assistance programs which
promote the improvement of justice in Indian country and the health, well-being,
and culture of Native peoples. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the UCLA School
of Law and an Appellate Court Judge for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
Indians in North Dakota. He was an Adjunct Professor at the University of
California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall) from 1995-2000 and Administrator
for the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA) from May
1998-December 2000. He served as the Senior Staff Attorney with the National
Indian Justice Center (NIJC) from NIJC’s establishment in 1983 until December
1996. He has also worked for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (19781979), the national office of the Legal Services Corporation (1979-1981), and the
American Indian Lawyer Training Program (1981-1983).
Tai Glenn is the Director of the Housing Unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los
Angeles, which addresses slum housing conditions through policy advocacy,
outreach and affirmative litigation. Her housing experience includes assisting a
tenant group to purchase their building, training government officials and
housing inspectors to deal effectively with slum conditions, working on creating
relocation benefits for tenants forced to vacate due to slum conditions, code
enforcement and litigating major habitability cases including 3.5 million dollar
judgment for sub-standard conditions.
Carole Goldberg is a professor at the UCLA School of Law, directs the Joint
Degree Program in Law and American Indian Studies and is the Faculty Advisory
Committee Chair of UCLA’s Native Nations Law and Policy Center. She teaches
Civil Procedure, Federal Indian Law, Tribal Legal Systems, and the Tribal Legal
Development Clinic, which renders legal services to Indian tribes and Indian
judicial systems. Professor Goldberg has written widely on the subject of federal
Indian law and tribal law, and is co-editor and co-author of Felix Cohen's
Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1982) and co-author of American Indian Law:
Native Nations and the Federal System (4th ed. 2003) (with Professors Robert
Clinton and Rebecca Tsosie, Lexis Publishing) and author of Planting Tail
Feathers: Tribal Survival and Public Law 280 (UCLA American Indian Studies
Center 1997).
Bruce Goldstein is a Co-Executive Director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc.
FJF is a national litigation and advocacy group for migrant and seasonal
farmworkers. Bruce received his B.S. degree from eh N.Y. State School of
industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University (1977) and his law degree from
Washington University in St. Louis (1980). At FJF, Bruce has been monitoring and
litigating cases under the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program.
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He has played a major role at the national legal as an advocated for
farmworkers in the debate over a new "guestworker" program, legalization of
undocumented workers, and related immigration policies. Bruce has also
advocated for improved wages and working conditions and better labor law
enforcement for farmworkers, and reforming the farm labor contractor system,
through litigation, training, public education, administrative advocacy and
Congressional lobbying.
Lizel Gonzelez has worked at Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., since 1997 as
an attorney in the Employment & Economic Self-Sufficiency unit, which mainly
handles unemployment compensation, SSI, food stamps, and Medicaid cases.
Since she began at LSGMI, she has primarily focused on issues involving alien
eligibility for all public benefits and Medicaid waiver issues. She received her
B.A. from Florida International University and her J.D. from Southern Illinois
University.
Jim Grow has devoted his legal career to working on affordable housing issues.
Since joining NHLP as a staff attorney in 1980, he has represented and
advanced the interests of low-income tenants through judicial, legislative and
administrative forums, and by training and supporting the work of other
advocates. His work has focused on the federal housing programs—specifically,
the HUD rental programs such as public housing and Section 8—with an
emphasis on preservation issues. A leader in the housing preservation
community, Mr. Grow is frequently invited to give testimony at Congressional
hearings and to provide technical assistance to Congressional staff. He is a
frequent trainer, speaker and panelist at affordable housing conferences for
public interest and public sector organizations throughout the country, and has
authored and contributed to numerous publications, manuals, guidebooks and
articles on a spectrum of low-income housing issues. Mr. Grow received his A.B.
degree in economics and J.D. degree from the University of California at
Berkeley.
Gabrielle Hammond is the director of the National Technology Assistance
Project (NTAP), which is based at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County,
California. NTAP is funded by the federal Legal Services Corporation to provide
technical assistance for legal aid programs that want to use technology to serve
clients more effectively. Ms. Hammond previously served as a project director
at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, where she created and supervised a
statewide legal aid hotline, a volunteer program, and the Center for Equal
Justice, which provides workshops and self-help materials to clients. Ms.
Hammond is a graduate of the University of Oregon.
Camille Holmes is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Law and Social Policy
(CLASP) and Co-Director of the Project for the Future of Equal Justice, a joint
project of CLASP and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. The
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Project advances problem solving strategies for creating sustainable change in
low income and marginalized communities and promotes collaborations
among legal aid, civil rights, racial justice and community based organizations.
Prior to coming to CLASP, Ms. Holmes was Executive Director of the Southern
Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project (SALSLEP). Previously, Ms.
Holmes was a corporate attorney at the D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler &
Pickering and clerked for the Honorable Damon J. Keith on the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals. She is currently the President of the Board of Directors of the
Washington Council of Lawyers, a voluntary bar association promoting pro bono
and public interest law in the District of Columbia. (Memphis, TN; B.A., Harvard
and Radcliffe; J.D., Harvard)
Rachael Henderson works for the Georgia Legal Services Program.
Eve Hershcopf is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Child Care Law Center where
she is working primarily on the intersection of child care and welfare reform
issues. A graduate of New York University School of Law. Eve began her legal
career with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services (SMRLS). Her focus on
welfare reform from a policy perspective began with an M.A. from the University
of California, Davis, and with work at the Welfare Policy Research Project at the
University of California.
Ilene J. Jacobs is a Director of Litigation, Advocacy & Training for California Rural
Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA), providing legal representation for farmworkers,
recent immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities and low-income people
throughout rural California. Ms. Jacobs’ legal work has centered around fair
housing, farmworker housing, civil rights and anti-slumlord litigation, hate crimes,
creation of access to decent, affordable housing, housing & related health
issues & education for the low income, farmworker and minority communities in
rural California. Ms. Jacobs is the co-chair of the CRLA Housing Task Force,
Project Director for the CRLA Rural Fair Housing. Ms. Jacobs is the CRLA
delegate to the Decennial Census Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of
Commerce, appointed by the late Secretary Ron Brown in 1995 after a
successful request to the Department of Commerce to disavow 1990 decennial
census data as the most reliable data for farmworker program funding and
planning. Ms. Jacobs has taught housing law for the University of California,
Davis Law School and women & the law for Yuba Community College. She
attended Boston University and the Northeastern University School of Law,
started her practice of law with the National Housing Law Project in 1979 in
Washington, D.C., where her work involved advocacy for the constitutional
rights of the homeless in litigation against the District of Columbia and the
federal government. She practiced as a housing specialist with the Legal Aid
Bureau in Baltimore, Maryland representing low-income renters in landlordtenant disputes and slumlord litigation, and advocating for the rights of the
homeless.
Page 30
Monica Kane is an Immigration Staff Attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of
Los Angeles County, which she joined in 2002. At NLS, Ms. Kane assists clients
from the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Antelope and San Gabriel Valleys with
family-based and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) immigration cases. Ms.
Kane graduated from Santa Clara University and UCLA School of Law. Prior to
her work with NLS, she interned/volunteered at the East San Jose Community
Law Center, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Public Counsel, and Catholic
Legal Immigration Network.
Kirsten Keefe is a staff attorney in the Consumer Housing and Economic
Development Unit of the Greater Upstate Law Project, Inc. (GULP) in Albany,
New York. Kirsten worked in the Consumer Housing Unit of Community Legal
Serives, Inc. (CLS) in Philadelphia, PA prior to returning to her hometown in
upstate New York. She is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and of the
Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where she has taught consumer law,
as well. Prior to attending law school, Kirsten served as a U.S. Peace Corps
volunteer in Thailand.
Manjusha P. Kulkarni is a staff attorney at the National Health Law Program
(NheLP) in Los Angeles, California. Manju has worked on improving access to
quality health care for low income individuals at NheLP since 1999. She provides
legal assitance and training to health attorneys and advocates on issues involving
children's health care, oral health care, medical debt and medical transportation.
Manju has authored numerous articles, reports and training materials on these
topics. Manju received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a
Certificate in Women's Studies from Duke University and a Juris Doctor degree from
Boston University School of Law.
Ines Kuperschmit is a Skadden Fellow at the Public Counsel Law Center, where
she has worked since graduating from UCLA School of Law in 2002. While in
school, Ines served as the editor-in-chief of the Chicano-Latino Law Review, and
co-founded the Rights Now Youth Conference and Conference on Progressive
Law and Community Action Strategies. Ines also spent her summers during law
school working at the Public Counsel Law Center and Alliance for Children’s
Rights.
Kate Lang recently joined NLADA as the Associate Attorney in the Civil Division.
Most recently, Kate was with the firm of Doherty, Cella, Keane and Associates,
where she specialized in representing Social Security Disability claimants in
hearings across the country. Prior to that work, Kate was with the Legal Clinic of
Bread for the City in Washington, DC, and spent 2½ years as a Staff Attorney
with Legal Services of Northern California. Kate earned her J.D. from Fordham
University School of Law, and her B.A. from Oberlin College.
Page 31
Joann H. Lee is the Directing Attorney of the Asian and Pacific Islander (API)
Community Outreach Unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA).
She provides direct legal services to the growing indigent API immigrant
population in the Los Angeles area. Ms. Lee coordinates outreach efforts,
media work, and projects designed to provide monolingual APIs better access
to legal services. Joann received her J.D. from George Washington University
Law School and a B.S. in Social Policy and Women's Studies from Northwestern
University. Prior to joining LAFLA, Ms. Lee worked on immigration and welfare
policy issues at the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium in
Washington, DC. She currently serves on the boards of the Korean American Bar
Association of Southern California and the Center for the Pacific-Asian Family.
Sherry Leiwant is a senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW
Legal Defense and Education Fund), running the State Advocacy Project,
working on issues intersecting women’s rights and poverty. Prior to joining Legal
Momentum, she spent 12 years as a senior staff attorney at the Welfare Law
Center, a national support center, working on income support issues. Prior to
that, she was a staff attorney at the Department of Health Education and
Welfare and an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Sherry
graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude and from Columbia
University School of Law as a Stone Scholar. She has three children and has
served on the Boards of Bank Street College of Education and Basic Trust Infant
and Toddler Center.
Daniela Letz is the Advocacy Services Coordinator at the Sexual Assault
Resource Center in Portland, Oregon. Ms. Letz holds a Master's Degree in Social
Work and has worked in the field of interpersonal violence for the past nine
years. As an accomplished presenter, she conducts trainings and workshops in
the area of sexual assault. Ms Letz also serves as an elected member of the
Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Taskforce.
Nona Liegeois is the Directing Attorney of LAFLA’s Community Economic
Development Unit, which provides legal representation, policy advocacy,
and community education for nonprofit groups, microbusinesses, and
community based organizations involved in community development
activities. She has been with LAFLA since 1997. Nona specializes in policy
advocacy and legal representation of nonprofits in the areas of workforce
development, public job creation, and nonprofit business development. She
sits on the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board, serving on the
Accountability and Learning and Literacy committees. She edited and cowrote the article “Helping Low-Income People Get Decent Jobs: One Legal
Services Program’s Approach,” which was published in the Clearinghouse
Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, September-October 1999 issue.
She has bachelors’ degrees in International Relations and French from the
University of Southern California and a J.D. from Georgetown.
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Judy London is the Directing Attorney of Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights
Project. From 1996 to 2000, she was the Legal Director of the Central American
Resource Center (CARECEN) in Los Angeles. Before joining Public Counsel, Ms.
London worked as a sole practitioner specializing in deportation defense. While
at CARECEN, Ms. London was instrumental in securing the enactment of the
Nicaraguan and Central American Relief Act (NACARA). At Public Counsel, Ms.
London has focused on asylum and the representation of undocumented
children seeking special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS). She has trained
probate, dependency and delinquency court staff on SIJS and other
immigration remedies for undocumented children. She received her law
degree from UCLA School of Law in 1990.
Susana Martinez is a Staff Attorney with the Immigration Unit at the Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). Ms. Martinez provides legal representation to
immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking.
Denice Wolf Markham has been an attorney and advocate for battered
women for more than 20 years. After graduating from Loyola Law School in
1986, Denice worked as a director of a project providing lay advocacy for
battered women in criminal court, and as a staff attorney and then as supervisor
at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where she helped establish its
Family Law Project. Denice joined Life Span, a domestic violence agency, in
1993 as the Director of Legal Services—the first Illinois agency to combine civil
representation and social services for battered women in the same
organization. Denice became the executive director of Life Span in 1996, and
has overseen the creation and/or expansion of projects which provide hospital
advocacy, services for teens, specialized services for women whose abusers are
police officers, and comprehensive services for immigrant battered women. Life
Span’s 28 staff of lawyers, counselors, and advocates serves about 4500 clients
per year. Denice works on policy initiatives on such issues as mental illness and
domestic violence, child protection, and criminal court reform issues. She is a
strong believer in developing a policy and systemic advocacy agenda based
on knowledge gained from direct service experience. Denice does training on
a variety of issues concerning battered women and family law, and is on the
adjunct faculty at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.
Demetria McCain is NHLP’s Equal Justice Works (formerly NAPIL) Fellow. Ms.
McCain joined NHLP in September 2004 through a two-year EJW Fellowship to
work on the Rural Housing Preservation Initiative. Based in the Oakland office,
she is currently involved in monitoring USDA mortgage prepayments on rural
properties across the country and providing technical assistance and federal
litigation support to legal services attorneys. Ms. McCain earned her J.D. from
Howard University Law School in May of 2001. Following law school, she served
as a staff attorney and Covington & Burling Fellow at the Neighborhood Legal
Services Program in Washington, D.C. Before deciding to switch careers and
Page 33
become a lawyer, Ms. McCain worked as a theatre professional both onstage
and through producing. She holds an undergraduate degree in acting from
New York University and an MFA in performing arts management from Brooklyn
College.
Larry McDonough has been a Legal Services attorney in Minnesota for over 20
years, focusing primarily on housing and consumer law for the last 17 years. He
co-founded Minnesota’s 15 year old Annual Housing Law Institute and authored
most of the housing manuals and forms posted on www.projusticemn.org,
formerly www.probono.net/mn, as well as most of the housing forms used by
courts in Minnesota. He teaches a housing law clinic at the University of
Minnesota Law School, and co-teachers poverty law at both the University of
Minnesota and University of St. Thomas Law Schools. He also has taught at the
Housing Justice Network national conference, and consulted with housing
authorities around the country on eviction procedures. He also has been a
professional jazz pianist for 30 years, with two CDs under his own name,
http://www.larrymcdonoughjazz.homestead.com.
Gerry McIntyre is the Directing Attorney for the National Senior Citizens Law
Center.
Valerie McWilliams is the managing attorney in the Champaign office of Land
of Lincoln Legal Assistance where she has worked for 20 years, along with four
other attorneys with nearly as much experience. Formerly a health and welfare
specialist, she now incorporates economic development and community
activities into her daily work while handling an assortment of standard legal
services family and welfare cases. She attempts to be a catalyst for strategies
that alleviate poverty by focusing on barriers to employment and businesses
that prey on low and moderate income “wage slaves.”
Jessica Mindlin is the Senior Staff Attorney for the National Crime Victim Law
Institute and for the Institute’s Center for Law and Public Policy on Sexual
Violence (CLPPS). Prior to joining CLPPS and NCVLI, Ms. Mindlin was a Family
Law Support Unit Attorney for the Oregon Law Center and for Legal Aid Services
of Oregon, where she provided domestic relations litigation and advocacy
assistance to legal aid attorneys throughout Oregon, coordinated the statewide
Family Law Task Force, consulted on state and national domestic and sexual
violence policy issues. She is the former Director of the Oregon Supreme CourtOregon State Bar Task Force on Gender Fairness and the Oregon Coalition
Against Domestic and Sexual Violence’s Legal Access Project. She is the author
of “Child Sexual Abuse and Criminal Statutes of Limitation: A Model for Reform,”
65 Wash.L.Rev. 189 (1990) and “Courtwatch: Judges Respond to Domestic
Violence,” (OCADSV 1996); and co-author of the Oregon Family Law Legal
Services Commission Report to the Oregon Legislative Assembly (1999).
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Steve Moore has been with the Native American Rights Fund since the early
1980's, and, until 1995, ran the LSC-funded Indian Law Support Center at NARF
as the Director. Since the mid-90's NARF has continued to provide supportive
services to NAILS programs using unrestricted funds.
Sheila Neville is a Staff Attorney with the Immigration Unit at the Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), where she oversees S.T.O.P. the Traffic:
Slavery Training and Outreach Project. Ms. Neville provides training and
technical assistance on human trafficking and slavery issues to legal aid
programs and other community-based agencies throughout the United States.
Before returning to LAFLA last year, she worked for the National Immigration Law
Center, LAFLA's Immigrants' Rights Office and the Haitian Refugee Center in
Miami. Ms. Neville received her law degree from George Washington University
Law School.
Joyce Noche joined the Immigrant Women Program as a policy attorney in
February 2003. Prior to joining Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense
and Education Fund), Ms. Noche was a Domestic Violence Project attorney and
former NAPIL Fellow with The Legal Aid Society in New York City where she
represented battered women in family law, matrimonial, and immigration issues
for 3 1/2 years. Ms. Noche’s primary focus is on family law, sexual assault, and
housing issues as they affect immigrant women and their children. Her duties
include national advocacy, policy-making, drafting legislation, training, and
providing technical assistance to domestic violence, sexual assault and
immigration attorneys and advocates. Ms. Noche received her undergraduate
degree from the University of Southern California in 1996 and her law degree
from the University of California, Davis in 1999. Ms. Noche is a member of the
New York State Bar.
Leslye Orloff joined Legal Momentum’s (formerly NOW Legal Defense and
Education Fund) Washington D.C. office in September of 1999. She directs the
Immigrant Women Program (IWP), which advocates for laws, policies and
practices that enhance the legal rights of immigrant women and immigrant
victims of violence against women. IWP focuses on improved access to
immigration benefits, the justice system, public benefits, social services and
health care. Leslye is a co-founder and co-chair of the National Network to End
Violence Against Immigrant Women and is the Washington, D.C. spokesperson
for that organization. In that capacity she was involved in drafting the
Protection for Battered Immigrant Women Provisions of the Violence Against
Women Act in 1994 and again in 2000, legal services access for battered
immigrants in 1997 and welfare access for battered immigrants in 1996. She has
written local and national training curricula and manuals and is a nationally
respected trainer. Prior to joining NOW Legal Defense, during Leslye’s 17-year
litigation career she founded and directed the domestic violence program at
Ayuda. Leslye has also published numerous social science journal and law
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review articles.
Kathleen Overr is working to improve health and housing department policy in
the city of Long Beach as it relates to lead poisoning screening and testing,
abatement of lead hazards and prevention. Prior to joining Legal Aid, Kathleen
was at the Westside Fair Housing Council where she worked to enforce fair
housing laws and inject an environmental justice perspective into low-income
housing. In the past, Kathleen worked with two leading environmental
organizations in Los Angeles, Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles
and Coalition for Clean Air. Kathleen was a founding member of the LA Lead
Collaborative, a coalition of community-based organizations that incorporated
lead poisoning outreach into their existing strategies and programs.
Mona Patel-Sikora is a Staff Attorney with the Immigration Unit at the Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). She provides legal representation for
battered immigrants in the area of immigration law. Ms. Patel-Sikora received
her law degree from U.S.C. Law School in May 1990. She also has a Master’s
Degree in Social Work and has worked extensively with battered women and
children. In 2002, Ms. Patel-Sikora was named one of California’s Top 20 Lawyers
Under 40 by California Law Business Magazine. In February 2004, she was
presented with the Public Service Award by the South Asian Bar Association
(SABA). Prior to joining LAFLA, Ms. Patel-Sikora was a Staff Attorney with Public
Counsel Law Center and also a litigation associate with the international law
firm of Bryan Cave LLP.
Jane Perkins is the Legal Diretor at the National Health Law Program, a public
interest law firm working to improve health care for low income people,
minorities, children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities. Ms. Perkins directs
NheLP's Court Watch Project and also focuses on Medicaid and discrimination in
the delivery of health care. She has engaged in extensive litigation and policy
advocacy on these topics and has authored and co-authored numerous article
on these issues. She provides legal assistance and training to consumer
advocates and health care consumers.
Mike Pfeffer is the Executive Director of California Indian Legal Services.
Wendy Pollack is a Senior Attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on
Poverty Law. Wendy is the Shriver Center’s lead attorney on workforce issues
and matters relating to violence against women and other issues affecting lowincome women and girls (family law, employment, housing, pregnant and
parenting teens). She also works extensively on welfare, unemployment
insurance and other public benefits issues on the local, state and federal level.
Before coming to the Shriver Center in 1996, Wendy worked on the welfare law
team at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and as one of its
neighborhood staff attorneys. Before becoming a lawyer, she was a union
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carpenter and cofounder of Chicago Women Carpenters in 1979 and Chicago
Women in Trades in 1982. Wendy is a 1989 graduate of Harvard Law School.
Elena Popp is an attorney and founder of the Eviction Defense Network, a
groundbreaking approach to representing tenants facing eviction. Elena
worked for over ten years as a housing and community economic development
attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Elena is a founding
member of the Healthy Homes Collaborative.
Nancy J. Reyes-Rubi is a Staff Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los
Angeles (LAFLA). She provides direct legal services to victims of crimes in
immigration-related matters, including trafficking victims and domestic violence
victims. Ms. Reyes-Rubi’s work also involves outreach in the Los Angeles and
Orange County area to community- based organizations, shelters and
government agencies such as law enforcement to ensure information about
trafficking, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and U visa relief is widely
disseminated.
Lourdes A. Rivera is the managing attorney of the Los Angeles office and has
been with NheLP for the past ten years. She focuses on issues of Medicaid,
managed care and women's and children's health. She has authored articlers,
reports and training materials on these issues and provides legal assitance and
training to consumer and legal advocates. Lourdes currently serves as co-Chair
of the Health and Bioethics Committee of the ABA's Individual Rights and
Responsisbilites Section Befor coming to NheLP, Lourdes was senior associate
with the Children's Defense Fund, Health Division.
Robin R. Runge is the Director of the Commission on Domestic Violence at the
American Bar Association and a nationally recognized expert on the
employment rights of domestic violence victims. Robin speaks and provides
trainings regularly on these issues, has co-authored several articles on
employment law and domestic violence, and has worked on related state and
federal legislation. Previously, Robin was Deputy Director and Coordinator of
the Program on Women’s Employment Rights (POWER) at the D.C. Employment
Justice Center and the coordinator of the Domestic Violence and Employment
Project at the Employment Law Center, Legal Aid Society of San Francisco.
Philip Shakhnis is a staff attorney at the Environmental Law Foundation. His work
involves enforcing laws that protect the public from toxic hazards. He has
litigated several cases involving lead based paint hazards in slum dwellings.
Donald Saunders has dedicated the past 27 years to the delivery of quality legal
services to poor people, nationally as well as on the local and regional levels.
Since February 1995 he has served as Director of the Civil Legal Services Division at
NLADA. He previously served as Legislative Counsel for NLADA and the Project
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Advisory Group from May 1990 through January 1995. Before coming to
Washington, DC, he served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Legal
Services Resource Center, a state support backup center, in Raleigh, NC from
January 1983 to May 1990. In that capacity, he actively engaged in legislative
advocacy and appellate work covering a broad range of issues in housing,
employment, disability and civil rights law. From 1976 to 1982, he was a staff
attorney in the legal services program in Wilmington and the executive director of
the program in Boone, NC. Don received his J.D. from the University of North
Carolina School of Law in 1975 and his A.B. in Political Science from the University
of North Carolina in 1972.
Liza Siebel is Director of Public Policy at Break the Cycle, a national nonprofit
organization whose mission is to end domestic violence by working proactively
with youth. Break the Cycle furthers this mission by providing young people,
ages 12 to 22, with preventive law-related education, legal services, advocacy
and support. Liza began her involvement with Break the Cycle as a Law Student
intern in 1999, and after graduating from UCLA School of Law, Liza returned to
the organization as a Staff Attorney with a two-year Skadden Fellowship. A
committed advocate for women and children, Liza has also worked with the
National Women’s Political Caucus, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the
California Women’s Law Center.
Greg Spiegel has been a staff attorney at the Western Center on Law and
Poverty since 2000, a nonprofit organization advocating for the rights of lowincome Californians in the areas of housing, health and welfare. Greg
specializes in addressing health hazards in housing. Greg is the author of
Western Center's The Lead Guide, in addition to an article on lead poisoning
prevention published in the January/February 2004 edition of the
Clearinghouse Review. Currently Greg is working under a grant from The
California Wellness Foundation to partner with community organizations to
advance lead poisoning prevention strategies in California. Prior to coming to
Western Center, Greg worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
working on redevelopment, transportation and affordable housing issues and
counseling grassroots community groups in nonprofit corporate law. Greg is a
member of the Healthy Homes Collaborative.
Pat Sekaquaptewa is the Director of the Native Nations Law and Policy Center
which houses the Tribal Legal Development Clinic and the Hopi Appellate
Project. She teaches the Tribal Legal Development course and the Nation
Building course in the American Indian Studies department. In 1998, she worked
for the law firm of Alexander & Karshmer, which represents American Indian
tribes, Alaska Native villages, and inter-tribal organizations. She is a founding
board member and Associate Director of the Tribal Law & Policy Institute
formerly located in San Francisco and now located in West Hollywood. The
Institute is committed to the development of tribal justice systems and, among
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other things, coordinates conferences on national policy and law affecting
tribal courts, tribal-federal and tribal-state relationships, and comparative tribal
law. The Institute is also engaged in providing on-site technical assistance to
tribes setting up or enhancing their tribal courts and related systems.
Daliah Setareh is a Staff Attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
(LAFLA) where she practices in the field of immigration law. Ms. Setareh
published a law review article “Women Escaping Genital Mutilation-Seeking
Asylum in the United States” in the UCLA Women’s Law Journal in the Fall of 1995
while she attended Southwestern University School of Law and has been
focusing on providing legal assistance to abused immigrant women from
around the world, representing them before the Citizenship and Immigration
Services and the Immigration Courts in their VAWA, cancellation and asylum
claims.
Wenona Singel recently joined the UND School of Law faculty as a visiting
assistant professor. Professor Singel has been an associate with the Indian law
firm Kanji & Katzen since August of 2001. She graduated from Harvard College
with an A.B. magna cum laude in Social Studies in 1995, and received her J.D. in
1999 from Harvard Law School, where she served as the Vice Chair of the Native
American Law Students Association. She is an enrolled member of the Little
Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
Susie Suafai is a senior program staff for the Sectoral Employment Intervention
Strategies Project under the Center’s Jobs, Income and Assets Division. She
started at the Center in February 1997 and came with 23 years of experience in
the development and operation of public nonprofit employment training
organizations such as constitution occupations. Ms. Suafai was instrumental in
affecting regulatory changes on the state and federal level for women in
construction and apprenticeship. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Suafai was a
freelance consultant and trainer in the area of employment and training. She
served as an affirmative action coordinator with Huber Hunt & Nichols, Inc., and
the executive director of the Women in Apprenticeship Program, both in San
Francisco. Ms. Suafai attended the Labor Studies Program at San Francisco
Community College.
Mona Tawatao has been a regional counsel with Legal Services of Northern
California (LSNC) since October 1999. Her job includes overseeing, directing
and coordinating LSNC’s housing advocacy. Mona's specialties are enforcing
the rights of tenants living in government-assisted housing, preserving affordable
housing units and enforcing local governments' land use obligations to lowincome people. Mona also works on education and language access
advocacy and is currently one of the LSNC staff heading the implementation of
LSNC’s Racial Justice Initiative. Prior to joining LSNC, Mona worked for nine
years at San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services (NLS) as a staff
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attorney and directing attorney where she focused on affordable housing
development, land use cases, school finance cases. Mona earned her J.D. in
1986 from UCLA School of Law in 1986 and her B.A. in 1983 from UC San Diego.
Paul Thibeault is the Director of Anishnabe Legal Services.
Debbie Thomas has been with the Native American Rights Fund since the early
1980's, and, until 1995, ran the LSC-funded Indian Law Support Center at NARF
as Deputy Director. Since the mid-90's NARF has continued to provide
supportive services to NAILS programs using unrestricted funds.
Diane Thompson has represented low-income homeowners since 1994. Since
1998, she has been the Supervising Attorney of the Housing and Consumer Unit
of the East St. Louis office of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc.
She concentrates her practice in homeowners defense, including installment
land contacts, mortgage foreclosures defense, and affirmative suits on behalf of
homeowners. Ms. Thompson is currently a member of the Consumer Advisory
Council of the Federal Reserve Board. She received her B.A. from Cornell
University in 1991 and her J.D. from New York University in 1994. Between 1995
and 2001, Ms. Thompson served as corporate counsel to the largest private
nonprofit affordable housing provider in the East St. Louis metropolitan area. Ms.
Thompson is a frequent speaker on fair housing law and predatory lending.
Abigail Trillin is the managing attorney at Legal Services for Children in San
Francisco and the co-director of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center. She has
been at Legal Services for Children handling guardianship, dependency,
immigration and school discipline case since 1996. Prior to attending law school,
Ms. Trillin taught elementary school in Los Angeles. Ms. Trillin holds a B.A. from
Yale University and J.D. from New York University.
Steve Virgil is an attorney with Nebraska Legal Services, where he also serves as
the Director of Community Economic Development. Prior to joining NLS, Mr. Virgil
was an attorney with a national law firm where he practiced in the areas of
public finance, structured finance, securities and corporate law. He is a
graduate of Case Western Reserve Univ. School of Law and St. John's College,
Annapolis, MD. He brings more than 10 years of professional experience to the
project. NLS launched its Community Economic Development project in June
2003 to meet the legal needs of low-income housing developers, business and
community development non-profits working in Nebraska.
Virginia (Jenny) Weisz has been the Directing Attorney of Children’s Rights at the
Public Counsel since 1992. Ms. Weisz oversees staff, pro bono attorneys and
other volunteers who assist over 6,000 youth annually through advocacy,
education and training in legal areas affecting youth and children. Prior to her
work at the Public Counsel, Ms. Weisz was the Co-Director of the UCLA
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Interdisciplinary Graduate Training Program in Child Abuse and Neglect, the
State Administrator of the North Carolina Office of Guardian ad Litem Services,
a private practice attorney and Peace Corp Volunteer in Kenya. Ms. Weisz has
also taught classes regarding law as it relates to children and adolescents at
UCLA and USC Law School.
Kimberly West-Faulcon serves as Director of Legal Counsel of the Western
Regional Offices of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF),
the civil rights law firm founded by the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall. West-Faulcon manages the LDF’s Los Angeles office succeeding
former Assistant United States Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lann Lee and
Los Angeles civil rights attorney Connie Rice. West-Faulcon manages a diverse
docket, ranging from her current employment discrimination lawsuit against the
clothing retailer Abercrombie & Finch to the representation of African American
police officers denied equal access to promotion within the ranks of the Los
Angeles Police Department. She recently represented applicants to the
University of California Berkeley subjected to discrimination after the elimination
of affirmative action in California. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Ms. WestFaulcon focused particular attention on how educational tracking and misuse
of standardized tests often deny poor and minority students equal educational
opportunities.
Deborah Widiss is a Staff Attorney at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal
Defense and Education Fund) with principal responsibilities for its Employment
and Housing Rights for Survivors of Abuse (EHRSA) project. The EHRSA project
helps survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking enforce their
legal rights by providing direct representation, technical assistance, and
informational materials. Deborah regularly provides trainings on employment
and housing issue for survivors and has co-authored articles on employment law
and domestic violence. Previously, Deborah was a staff attorney at the
Campaign for Fiscal Equity and at Lawyers Alliance for New York.
Doreena Wong is a staff attorney at the National Health Law Program (NheLP).
She provides support to the Health Consumer Alliance and advocates for
increased health care access for immigrants and for culturally and linguistically
appopriate health care services for limited English proficient populations. She
has participated on the Office of Minority Health's National Advisory Committee
for the Development of Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in
Health Care and California's Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically
Competent Physicians and Dentists. She graduated from New York University
School of Law in 1987 as a second career after having worked as a health care
professional for nine years.
Cynthia Works is the director of training & education for NLADA. An accomplished
trial attorney, Works began her career as a law clerk for the Honorable Henry
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Francis Green, Associate Judge, District of Columbia Superior Court. She then
served as a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service, before
transitioning into private practice. In addition to the practice of law, Works has a
background in the legal academy, teaching at George Mason School of Law
and Howard University School of Law. At Howard, Works coached the trial
advocacy team to numerous awards and honors, including the National
Championship at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy Tournament of
Champions in 1999. She also received her L.L.M in Trial Advocacy, graduating with
distinction.
Charles Wynder, Jr. is a senior attorney for justice leadership at the National
Legal Aid and Defender Association. In that position, Wynder works to expand
NLADA's capacity to provide training, technical assistance and information to
current and emerging civil legal aid leaders. Wynder previously served as the
executive director of Legal Services of Eastern Virginia. Prior to that he served as
a deputy Commonwealth's attorney for the Hampton Commonwealth
Attorney's Office.
Steven Xanthopoulos is an attorney and the executive director of West
Tennessee Legal Services, a rural program that is nationally known and
recognized for its collaborative and innovative projects focusing on the delivery
of holistic services to low income rural individuals, families and communities. With
a number of projects providing service in 9 states, WTLS is at the forefront of legal
services programs that build community based partnerships to meet the needs
of rural areas and clients with special needs such as the victims of crime and
abuse, the disabled, the HIV/Aids community, children and the elderly.
Linda Zazove is Deputy Director of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation,
Inc., an LSC funded program serving 65 counties in central and southern Illinois.
Her responsibilities include development of service delivery projects, strategic
planning, resource development, and pro bono supervision. She has worked in
legal services for over 20 years and has extensive experience in complex
litigation and legislative and administrative advocacy.
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