LEGAL ACTION CENTER Board of Directors

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LAC Board of Directors

Arthur Liman, Founding Chairman

Daniel K. Mayers, Esq., Chairman: Mr. Mayers joined the Legal Action Center Board in October, 1978, was elected Chairman of the Board in 1998 and re-elected in 2001. He is a member of the Board Class of 2004. Daniel Mayers is a recently retired senior partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, which he joined in 1962 as an Associate. He became a partner in 1967, after spending two years serving as Assistant to Undersecretary of State George Ball. While actively practicing, Mr. Mayers had a broad antitrust litigation and negotiation practice, representing numerous clients in private antitrust litigation and in FTC and DOJ actions and investigations. He has represented Harvard University in a federal investigation and consent decree involving Ivy League financial aid, Intuit in negotiations with the Justice Department involving its acquisition by Microsoft, and the University of Utah in a federal investigation and consent decree involving health care issues. He currently chairs a joint program on election reform law being carried out at Harvard and American University Law Schools. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Educational Television Association, the Visiting Committee of the Board of Overseers of Harvard Law School, and the Sidwell Friends School. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Americans for Peace Now, the Federal City Council, the Community Foundation for the National Capital Area, and the Washington Tennis Foundation.
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Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, Vice Chair: Professor Bartholet joined the Legal Action Center Board in October 1977 and was elected Vice Chair of the Board in 1998. She is a member of the Board Class of 2004. Elizabeth Bartholet has been Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law at Harvard Law School since 1996, where she has taught since 1977. Professor Bartholet was the Legal Action Center’s founding director and president until joining the Harvard faculty. She is the author of a large number of publications as well as a member of a number of committees and boards. Her areas of research interest include adoption, child welfare, and reproductive technology.
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Eric D. Balber, Esq.: Eric Balber was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in June of 1981. He is a member of the Board Class of 2005. Mr. Balber is a former staff attorney at the Legal Action Center and is currently a partner at Balber & Marshall.
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Sandra Ruiz Butter: Ms. Ruiz Butter joined the Board of the Legal Action Center in October, 2003. She is a member of the Board Class of 2006. Since 1992, Ms. Butter has been the President of VIP Community Services, a non-profit community based organization. During Ms. Ruiz Butter’s tenure, VIP has expanded its service programs to include HIV prevention, medical services, and supportive housing, in addition to maintaining its substance abuse treatment mission. During this period, VIP’s budget and staff have doubled. Prior to joining VIP, Ms. Ruiz Butter was a consultant on housing development assistance to profit and non-profit organizations; Vice President for Real Estate Development at Phipps Houses, one of the oldest non-profit real estate developers in the country; Vice President for Physical Development and previously, Director of Development at the South Bronx Development Organization; Vice President at the Starrett Development Corporation; Project Associate for the New York State Urban Development Corporation; and Special Assistant to the New York City Commissioner of Housing Development. Ms. Ruiz Butter is a member of the Advisory Board of WNET/Channel 13 and of the Enterprise Foundation’s New York Office; a Board Member of the New York State Association of Substance Abuse Providers (ASAP) and of the Latino Commission on AIDS. She has also served as Board Member and Secretary of the Legal Aid Society; the Chair and Board Member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund; and a Board Member of both the Community Service Society and the New York State Board of Social Welfare.
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Derrick D. Cephas was elected to the Board of Directors of the Legal Action Center in June 2006. He is a member of the Board Class 2009. Mr. Cephas is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Amalgamated Bank, which is headquartered in New York City and was established in 1923 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America primarily to meet the banking needs of low income working men and women. The Bank, owned by UNITE HERE, the labor union formed in 2004 by the merger of UNITE (the clothing, textile and needletrades union) and HERE (the hotel and restaurant employees union), along with a number of UNITE HERE locals and joint boards, is an FDIC insured commercial bank chartered under New York law. Mr. Cephas was from 1994 to 2005 a banking and corporate law partner in the New York office of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, and for many years a member of the firm's Management Committee. While at Cadwalader, Mr. Cephas represented commercial banks, thrift institutions, bank holding companies and foreign banking corporations in a wide range of regulatory and transactional matters. From July 1991 to June 1994 Mr. Cephas was the Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York, during which time Mr. Cephas became a nationally recognized leader in several areas of bank regulatory reform. His initiatives included efforts to reform the manner in which the Community Reinvestment Act is enforced, the creation and implementation of a more rational and hospitable regulatory and supervisory environment for foreign banks to do business in the United States, the revision of the regulations governing the conversion of mutual thrift institutions to stock form and the enactment of interstate branch banking legislation. Prior to becoming Superintendent of Banks, Mr. Cephas was a partner at the New York law firm of Breed, Abbott & Morgan, where he specialized in corporate and bank regulatory law. Mr. Cephas is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Dime Savings Bank of New York and Merrill Lynch International Bank and is currently a director of D.E. Shaw -& Co. Inc., the Fresh Air Fund and the United Hospital Fund. He has testified numerous times before the New York State Legislature, the U.S. Congress, regulatory bodies, legislative panels and other similar bodies. Mr. Cephas graduated from Harvard College in 1975 and from Harvard Law School in 1979.
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Suzanne B. Cusack: Ms. Cusack was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in September 1996. She is a member of the Board Class of 2005 and serves on the Board Development Committee. Suzanne Cusack, along with her husband Jim, is the owner and director of Veritas Villa, a free-standing inpatient rehabilitation center for alcohol and drug dependence, and is responsible for many of its administrative functions, as well as conducting educational lectures and acting as liaison between management and staff. Ms. Cusack is particularly interested in the issue of women’s substance abuse problems and the difficulties faced by women in recovery, and is the author of two books on the subject. Ms. Cusack has played a significant role in several organizations which focus on the issue of women and treatment, and was a founding member and past president of the New York Women’s Coalition on Chemical Dependency.
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Edward J. Davis, Esq.: Mr. Davis was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in May 1998. He is a member of the Board Class of 2004 and Chair of the Board Development Committee. Mr. Davis worked as a staff attorney at the Legal Action Center from 1988 to 1993. He is now a Partner in the New York office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where he specializes in First Amendment and intellectual property issues, complex business litigation and arbitration, and international human rights. Mr. Davis represented a national coalition of prominent museums and other cultural institutions in the First Amendment litigation over the City of New York's efforts to punish the Brooklyn Museum of Art for a controversial exhibit. Mr. Davis has chaired the Independent Judicial Screening Panel for the New York State Supreme Court and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Media Law and Defamation Torts and Chair of the Committee on Copyright and Literary Property for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
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Michael K. Deaver: Mr. Deaver was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in May 1999. He is a member of the Board Class of 2005 and a member of the Development Committee. Michael Deaver currently serves as International Vice Chairman for Edelman Worldwide and Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Edelman's Washington Office. Mr. Deaver spent more than twenty years as one of Ronald Reagan’s closest advisors during his tenure both as President of the United States and Governor of California. Mr. Deaver is credited with being the architect of the Reagan communication program and was responsible for designing the communications strategy in Reagan's 1980 and 1984 landslide presidential campaigns. Additionally, Mr. Deaver served as President Reagan's Deputy Chief of Staff between 1981 and 1985.
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Jason Flom: Mr. Flom was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in October 1999. He is a member of the Board Class of 2005. Jason Flom has been the President of Lava Records since its founding in March 1995 and is a Senior Vice President at Atlantic Records. During his more than twenty years in the record industry, Mr. Flom has been responsible for signing a long list of hugely successful artists in a wide variety of rock genres. Mr. Flom is also a member of the Board of Directors of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an organization which aims to abolish mandatory drug sentencing. On July 12, 1999, Mr. Flom was awarded the ACLU Foundation of Southern California’s Torch of Liberty Award, which is given to “individuals from the arts and entertainment industry and the media whose work affirms the democratic principles that underlie the promise of ‘liberty and justice for all.”
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Diana R. Gordon: Ms. Gordon was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in October 1978 and is a member of the Board Class of 2004. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics at CUNY and the Board of Trustees of the Global Policy Institute. She teaches in the Ph.D. program in criminal justice of the City University of New York (CUNY). She has worked at CUNY since 1984, first as an Associate Professor and then, since 1991, as a full Professor in the Political Science Department at City College. She has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in constitutional law, legal process, law and society, American politics, criminology, and public policy. In 1995, she was admitted to CUNY's Ph.D. faculties in criminal justice and political science. Ms. Gordon is the author of several books and many articles on criminal justice policy, and is currently working on a book on the effects of democratization on police and courts in South Africa.
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Alan Jenkins: Mr. Jenkins was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in July 1998. He is a member of the Board Class of 2004. Alan Jenkins is Director of human rights and international cooperation at the Ford Foundation. From 1994 to 1995, he served as assistant to the Solicitor General in the US Department of Justice and, from 1991 to 1995, he was an assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He is the author of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Racial Discrimination in Federally Funded Programs.
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Brad S. Karp, Esq.: Mr. Karp was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in July 1998. He is a member of the Board Class of 2004 and a member of the Development Committee. Brad Karp is a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and co-chair of the firm's Securities, Futures and Derivatives Group. His practice has been widely diversified, with concentration in the areas of intellectual property, complex securities and business matters, and white collar criminal defense. Mr. Karp is a frequent lecturer on business litigation and securities and intellectual property issues. For more than fifteen years, he has written a monthly column for the New York Law Journal, entitled "Second Circuit Review," which discusses significant decisions and analyzes developments in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition, Mr. Karp has authored numerous articles on business litigation issues. Mr. Karp is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has served on several committees, and a member of the Institute of Judicial Administration. He also sits on the board of directors of Practicing Attorneys for Law Students Program, Inc.
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Richard C. Lee: Mr. Lee was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in January 2002. He is a member of the Board Class of 2005 and Chair of the Finance Committee. Richard is a partner at KPMG LLP and a member of the Transaction Services practice. He is also a member of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
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Doug Liman: Mr. Liman was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in May 1998. He is a member of the Board Class of 2004. Doug Liman, son of the Legal Action Center’s Founding Chairman, Arthur Liman, is the Director and Cinematographer of two successful recent films, Swingers (1996) and Go (1999) and director and co-producer of Universal Pictures' 2002 hit film The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon. He was involved in the creation of Propaganda Independent, through which he directed cutting edge commercials for Levi's and Sony. He was also the founder of Nibblebox and is the Vice Chairman of Hypnotic. In 1997, he received an MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.
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Professor Michael Meltsner: Professor Meltsner is the longest serving current member of the Legal Action Center Board, having been elected in October of 1975. He is a member of the Board Class of 2000. Michael Meltsner is the George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University Law School where he has taught since 1984. He has been a visiting professor and the director of the Harvard Law School's First Year Lawyering program and a professor at Columbia Law school where he co-founded the School's first poverty law clinic. His teaching specialties include Constitutional Litigation, Criminal Law and Procedure, Clinical Education, Mediation and Negotiation. He previously served as dean of the law school from 1979 until 1984 and was the first assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the 1960s. Among his writings are five books: The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer; Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment; Public Interest Advocacy; Toward Simulation in Legal Education: An Experimental Course in Pretrial Litigation; and Short Takes, a novel. He also cooauthered Reflections on Clinical Legal Education (with Philip Schrag ). He has also published numerous articles on legal topics. In 2000, Professor Meltsner was named a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, and conducted research into German constitutional law.
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Mark C. Morril, Esq.: Mr. Morril was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in March 1981. He is a member of the Board Class of 2005 and a member of the Development Committee. Mr. Morril formerly worked as a staff attorney at the Legal Action Center. He is currently the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Viacom Inc . He has been at Viacom since moving there in November of 1998 from the company's publishing subsidy, Simon & Schuster, where he had been General Counsel since July 1989. Mr. Morril has extensive experience in legal and policy matters including litigation, acquisitions, divestitures and corporate development, rights acquisition and management, electronic rights issues, Internet and on-line development, joint ventures and co-publishing ventures, labor and employment, copyright, trademark, antitrust, and regulatory and government affairs matters.
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Mary Mulligan: Ms. Mulligan joined the Legal Action Center Board in February 2008. She is currently a partner at Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP and a member of the New York State Bar Association's Committee on White Collar Criminal Litigation. From 1997 to 2002, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and directed investigations and prosecutions of fraud, narcotics, public corruption and organized crime. During that time, she also led the government's largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation to date. Ms. Mulligan served as the Senior Director, Business and Legal Affairs, of Universal Music Group, handling corporate compliance matters, internal investigations, privacy issues and supervised litigation. She has represented individuals and corporations in cases involving allegations of insider trading, stock option backdating, internet fraud, and Medicaid fraud, and her intellectual property practice has included defending breach of contract and trade secrets claims and representing a major consumer electronics manufacturer in putative nationwide class actions.Ms. Mulligan graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1983. She received her law degree cum laude in 1989 from New York University School of Law, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif, held a Libel Defense Resource Center Fellowship, and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Administrative Law and the Moot Court Advocacy Award.
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Dallas Pell was elected to the Board of Directors of the Legal Action Center in September 2005. She is a member of the Board Class of 2008. Ms. Pell has a Masters of Arts in Education from Long Island University and a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from Boston University. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Tony Award winning Trinity Repertory Company in Providence and is Vice-Chairman of Cliff Walk Commission. Ms. Pell has worked as Director for Pell Grants for Public Safety and as the Development Director for the National Museum of American Illustration. Ms. Pell is a passionate supporter of expanding educational opportunities for all, including people with criminal histories. She has volunteered her services to the Learning Leaders of New York City, where she worked with children of all ages to help them develop confidence and success in education. Her background also includes media work as producer, feature writer, literary agent, production Coordinator and staff writer for various companies, including In-flight Videos, Gulf Shore Life Magazine, John Brockman Association, September Productions and the Washington Gazette. Back to top

Ed Shaw: J. Edward Shaw joined the Board of the Legal Action Center in October, 2003. He is a member of the Board Class of 2006. Mr. Shaw is a powerful and active member of the HIV/AIDS community. Having been diagnosed with HIV in 1988, Mr. Shaw has demonstrated through his activities the possibilities and dynamics of empowerment and how that assists in the management of HIV/AIDS. He has participated in hundreds of HIV/AIDS symposia, conferences, and workshops at both community and government levels. His leadership and voice is a constant in New York but also he has been heard at national forums. Most recently he was a keynote speaker at the US Conference on AIDS in California (2002). Over the past decade he has served in multiple leadership capacities including Community Co-Chair of the HIV Health and Human Services Planning Council of New York. During that same period he has been appointed to many community and government mandated groups. These groups include the New York City and New York State Prevention Planning Groups.
In addition to recently joining the Board of Directors of the Legal Action Center, Mr. Shaw currently serves as a member to the National Association on HIV Over 50, Vice Chair of the New York Association on HIV over 50. Mr. Shaw is also the Community Co-Chair of the NYS HIV Prevention Planning Group and serves as the Co-Chair to the Program Services Advisory Group at GMHC (Gay Men's Health Crisis).
Mr. Shaw also has valued affiliations in an advisory capacity with numerous local AIDS service organizations, including the Harlem Director's Group, ACRIA (AIDS Community Research Initiative of America).
Recently, much of his time had been involved with being a member of the Host Committee for the 2004 PWA Summit. This HIV/AIDS event is being held for the first time in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic. His volunteer efforts at local hospitals, when time permits, have not gone unnoticed. Recently he was recognized for his 5000+ hours of volunteerism over the last several years.
Ed's education experience includes attendance at Cornell/Pace University with an emphasis on social activism. Prior to being diagnosed with HIV he worked with multiple city agencies in social work case management.
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Jane Velez: Ms. Velez was elected to the Legal Action Center Board in May 1990. She is a member of the Board Class of 2005. Jane Velez is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Palladia, Inc., formerly Project Return Foundation, Inc., where she has worked in various capacities since 1977. Ms. Velez has complete responsibility for administration and management of Palladia, Inc, one of the largest not-for-profit, multi-service agencies in the country. The organization aims to help individuals and families whose problems stem from substance abuse, homelessness, HIV disease, mental illness, criminality and/or domestic violence. Palladia offers its wide range of services along a continuum of care, from outreach, prevention and treatment through supportive, permanent housing. These services are designed to promote independence and responsible living. Palladia, Inc. pursues its mission by working in partnership with government, communities, academic institutions and the private sector. Ms. Velez is a member of a large number of organizations, dealing with a wide variety of social concerns, including domestic violence, homelessness, substance abuse, and AIDS.
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Arthur L. Liman (1932-1997) chaired the Legal Action Center from its founding in 1972 until 1997. Inspired by Arthur’s legacy, the Legal Action Center continues to fight discrimination at every level of society, to pursue enlightened social policy, and to help people reclaim their lives and maintain their dignity. Arthur L. Liman received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1954, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and received his law degree at the top of his class from Yale Law School in 1957. Immediately upon graduation from law school, he joined Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, eventually becoming a partner of the New York-based firm.

In addition to his trial work, Mr. Liman developed a long record of public service. In 1972, he was chief counsel of the New York State Commission on the Attica Prison uprising. In 1987, he served as chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and Nicaraguan Opposition (the Iran-Contra Committee). From 1983 to 1985, he was a member of the New York State Executive Advisory Committee on Sentencing, appointed by then Governor Cuomo to recommend revisions of the state’s system for sentencing offenders. He was Chairman of the Appointments Committee of Mayor Dinkins and was the chairman of a panel appointed by Mayor Koch to investigate the conduct of the Medical Examiner’s office. Mr. Liman also served, at the appointment of the Chief Judge of New York, as chairman of the Capital Defender Office, which has the responsibility of organizing and providing the defense for indigents in capital cases. He began his government service as an Assistant United States Attorney to Robert M. Morgenthau from 1961-1963. Mr. Liman was a member of the Board of Overseers at Harvard from 1988-1994, as well as the eighteenth president of the Legal Aid Society from 1983 to 1985.
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