Esther F. Lardent, Co-Chair

Ms. Lardent is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pro Bono Institute, the leading organization promoting pro bono among law firms and the corporate community. She is considered to be the country's leading expert on the pro bono concept and is regularly approached for advice for both the legal and corporate sectors. She is the recipient of many awards for her public and pro bono service. Ms. Lardent has been active in the American Bar Association, having served for many years in the ABA’s House of Delegates and previously serving on the Board of Governors and as Chair of the ABA Immigration Commission and Consortium on Legal Services and the Public.

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Barbara Arnwine

Barbara Arnwine is the Executive Director of the National Office of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Before assuming this position, she was the Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar. She has become renowned for her work on passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991. In 1995, Ms. Arnwine served as the National Convener of the National Conference on African American Women and the Law held in Washington and has led a delegation to the NGO Forum and Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She convened the third National Conference on African American Women and the Law in Washington, D.C. in 2000. Ms. Arnwine is the recipient of the National Bar Association's Equal Justice Award, the highest honor bestowed by that organization. A graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, California, Ms. Arnwine received her law degree from Duke University School of Law.

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The Honorable Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler is a constitutional and comparative law scholar, international human rights lawyer, counselor to prisoners of conscience, NGO head, community leader, and peace activist, Member of the Canadian Parliament since 1999, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. Mr. Cotler is Professor of Law Emeritus at McGill University, where he was Director of its Human Rights Programme and is Chair of InterAmicus, the McGill-based International Human Rights Advocacy Center. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Yale Law School, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the recipient of ten Honorary Doctorate Degrees.

Senator Thomas A. Daschle

Senator Daschle is a Senior Policy Advisor in DLA Piper’s Government Affairs practice and serves as a member of DLA Piper’s Global Board. He is one of the longest serving U.S. Senate Democratic leaders in history and the only one to serve twice as both Majority and Minority Leader. Senator Daschle serves on the boards of the Center for American Progress and the National Democratic Institute and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a member of the Health Policy and Management Executive Council at the Harvard School of Public Health, a member of the Global Policy Advisory Council for Health Worker Migration Initiative, and Chairman of Dupont’s Advisory Committee on Agricultural Innovation & Productivity for the 21st Century.

Michael E. Doyle

Mr. Doyle is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of CHF International, a humanitarian and international development organization founded in 1952 to assist low-income communities working toward long-term economic improvement and stability. He retired from that position in late 2010. Mr. Doyle also worked for more than 20 years with the US government, both as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia and Country Director throughout Latin America, and later as a federal Regional Director in Chicago. He is the Chairman of the Iraq Middle Market Development Foundation (IMMDF), a non-profit organization managing a $125 million loan fund to support the economic development of Iraq and assist in the creation of jobs for Iraqis.

Mark S. Ellis

Mark Ellis is the Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA). The IBA, which is located in London, is the leading international organization of bar associations and individual lawyers in the world, with 198 bar associations, more than 100 international firms, and over 45,000, individual members spanning the world. Prior to joining the IBA, Dr. Ellis spent 10 years as the first Executive Director of the ABA Central and East European Law Initiative (CEELI). CEELI provided technical assistance to 28 countries in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union and to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. A frequent speaker and media commentator on international legal issues, he appears regularly on CNN International, Al Jazeera, and BBC. Dr. Ellis has published extensively in the areas of international humanitarian law, war crimes tribunals, and the development of the rule of law and his op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Sunday Times (South Africa) and The London Times. His latest publication – Sovereignty and Justice: Creating Domestic War Crimes Courts within the Principle of Complementarity – will be published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

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Professor Thomas F. Geraghty

Professor Geraghty is the Associate Dean for Clinical Education and the Director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University School of Law. The Bluhm Legal Clinic houses a variety of clinical programs including the Children and Family Justice Center, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Center on International Human Rights, the Small Business Opportunity Center, and the MacArthur Justice Center. Professor Geraghty works in the areas of juvenile and criminal justice. In recent years, Professor Geraghty has worked in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi on projects relating to children’s rights, juvenile justice, access to justice, and legal education. Professor Geraghty is a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

Jared Genser

Jared Genser is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, LLC, a law and consulting firm that focuses on human rights and humanitarian projects. He is also Founder and Board Member of Freedom Now, a non-profit organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide. Previously, Jared was a partner in the government affairs group of DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, the global strategy consulting firm. He has taught semester-long seminars about the UN Security Council at Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania law schools. He was a 2006-2007 Visiting Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy. Jared's pro bono clients have included former Czech Republic President Václav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Desmond Tutu, and Elie Wiesel. He is co-editor of The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Ending Mass Atrocities in Our Times (Oxford University Press, 2011) with former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler.

Christine Jesseman

Christine Jesseman is the Director of the Pro Bono and Human Rights practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, DLA Piper’s South African group firm. Before joining Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Christine was worked for the South African Human Rights Commission where she held the positions of Head of Programme (Director) - Research, Documentation and Policy Analysis and Coordinator (Deputy Director) - Human Rights and Business Special Programme.  Christine began her career in commercial and regulatory practice, and has gained experience in various stakeholder sectors.  Christine is well-known for her contributions in fields of women’s and children’s rights, as well as human rights and business.

Ambassador Craig Kelly

After 25 years of service, Ambassador Kelly recently retired from the State Department and joined the Cohen Group as Vice President. Serving from 2007-2010 as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ambassador Kelly was the “chief operating officer” for policy and management in 34 countries from Canada to Chile. From 2004 to 2007, Ambassador Kelly was the U.S. Ambassador to Chile where he worked with the Chilean Government on several projects dedicated to drawing attention to the cooperation between the United States and Chile, including launching the American Academy of Science and Technology in Santiago and negotiating the Equal Opportunity Scholarships program.

Stasia Kelly

Stasia Kelly is a Partner in DLA Piper's White Collar, Corporate Crime and Investigation practice, based in Washington, DC. She comes to DLA Piper from American International Group, Inc. (AIG), where until the end of 2009 she was Vice Chairman in charge of global legal, compliance and regulatory functions, government relations, communications, corporate affairs and human resources. Ms. Kelly is a trustee of the Carey School of Business at The John Hopkins University and member of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University Law School. She is past chair of Equal Justice Works and a director of Lawyers for Children America and the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. Ms. Kelly also serves on the Board of Directors of Owens-Illinois and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

Sheldon Krantz

Sheldon Krantz is a fomer litigation partner at DLA Piper whose practice emphasized white collar criminal defense. Earlier in his career, he was a prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the US Department of Justice. Sheldon was also the dean of the University of San Diego School of Law, and, prior to that, a professor of law and director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Boston University School of Law.  Until July 2011, Sheldon had been the director of New Perimeter since its founding in 2005. He has been instrumental in developing New Perimeter’s approach to global pro bono and in directing its projects in the field. In heading New Perimeter’s Kosovo rule of law project, Sheldon traveled to Kosovo over 20 times to assist Kosovar Working Groups reach consensus on legislation to create an independent judiciary and system of prosecution. Sheldon also served as the President of the DLA Piper Foundation.
 

Janet Legrand

Janet Legrand is Senior Partner and Chairman of the Board of DLA Piper International. Prior to her election to this position in 2009, she had been a member of the Board and Chairman of the firm's Remuneration Committee for 10 years. She was also head of the firm's Specialist Litigation team and won Legal Business' Dispute Resolution Team of the Year award in 2008. Her recent successes include representing the Republic of Zambia in a series of high profile proceedings including the Country's flagship anti-corruption case against its former President and 19 other defendants in the English High Court. The four month trial of this ground breaking and politically sensitive case took place in London and Lusaka, with a simultaneous video link between the two courtrooms. Her successful defence of a $55m vulture fund claim against the Country led to the setting up of a Commission of Enquiry by the US Congress and the drafting of legislation in England, aimed at preventing vulture funds from purchasing deeply distressed sovereign debt and enforcing it at face value. The Legal Business award was presented to her in recognition of her ground breaking work for the Government of Zambia.

Susan Liss

Susan Liss is the Executive Director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Prior to joining the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Susan served as the Director of the Democracy Program at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Her 30-year career in public interest and public service jobs has included service as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy in the Department of Justice as well as Chief of Staff to Mrs. Gore and Special Counsel to the Vice President during the Clinton-Gore administrations. She is the widow of the late DLA Piper partner Jeff Liss, one of the architects of New Perimeter and a leading national advocate for pro bono and public interest legal work.

Nicolas Patrick

Nicolas is a full-time pro bono partner at DLA Piper, based in Sydney Australia. As head of the firm’s pro bono practice in Australasia, Nicolas sets the strategic direction of the firm's pro bono program and leads the firm's thinking in relation to community investment through pro bono service delivery in the region.

Nicolas is a professional pro bono lawyer with more than ten years' experience acting for pro bono clients. Nicolas practises mainly in the area of human rights law. His expertise includes UN treaty body engagement including the preparation of shadow (parallel) reports, individual communications to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and other United Nations treaty bodies.

Nicolas has also advised foreign governments in relation to a variety of human rights matters, including the implementation of major human rights treaties and fulfilment of UN reporting obligations.

Nicolas frequently represents marginalised and disadvantaged individuals in matters involving housing, domestic violence, credit and debt, victims of crime and welfare rights. Nicolas regularly acts for clients in discrimination matters before the Australian Human Rights Commission and Federal Court of Australia.

Robert L. Scott

Mr. Scott is the former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide – Europe, Africa, and Middle East Division. He pioneered Starwood's Check Out for Children charitable fundraising program, which to date has garnered more than $25 million used to immunize children in less developed countries against childhood killer diseases and which led to Starwood's recognition by UNICEF UK in 2007 as the most effective corporate partner of the decade. Mr. Scott has served of the boards of the UK Committee for UNICEF, CorporateProBono.org, and several Starwood affiliates, subsidiaries and joint ventures in Italy, Israel, Greece, Germany, France and the UK.

Paul R. Williams

Paul Williams is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), which provides pro bono legal assistance to states and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals. In 2005, several of Dr. Williams' pro bono government clients throughout the world joined together to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Williams holds the Rebecca Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University where he teaches both in the School of International Service and in the Washington College of Law.

Philip F. Zeidman

Philip Zeidman is a senior partner in DLA Piper's Franchise and Distribution practice and was recently named Global Franchise Lawyer of the Year for the sixth consecutive year by Who’s Who Legal, The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. He is a past president of the International Bar Association Foundation and a Founding Director of the Appleseed Network. Mr. Zeidman has engaged in an international transactional practice, taught at universities, testified before governmental bodies, participated in judicial and administrative proceedings, and appeared before business and professional groups throughout the world. He regularly leads International Bar Association sessions concerning the opportunities and challenges of international pro bono legal work.