ANNOUNCEMENTS
Staff
EXECUTIVE
David Stern, Chief Executive Officer - BIO
Paul Igasaki, Deputy Chief Executive Officer - BIO
Patrick Sanders, Special Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer
Yvonne Wynn, Executive Assistant to Deputy Chief Executive Officer
PROGRAMS
Law School Advocacy and Outreach
Kashyap Choksi, Director, Law School Advocacy and Outreach - BIO
Nada El-Eryan, Member Services Coordinator, Law School Advocacy and Outreach
Charlene Gomes, Senior Program Manager, Law School Advocacy and Outreach
Ericka Hines, Program Manager, Training and Evaluation
Heather Jarvis, Senior Program Manager, Law School Advocacy and Outreach - BIO
Taryn Myers, Program Coordinator, Law School Advocacy and Outreach
Public Interest Law Opportunities
Cait Clarke, Director, Public Interest Law Opportunities - BIO
Martin Costello, Program Manager, AmeriCorps
Eric Harsch, Program Assistant, AmeriCorps
Coleman McMahon, Senior Program Manager, AmeriCorps
Jennifer Tschirch, Senior Program Manager, Fellowships
Imoni Washington, Senior Program Manager, Fellowships
Carlyn Zaugg, Program Assistant, Fellowships
DEVELOPMENT
Andy Zovko, Director of Development - BIO
Martha Bond, Regional Director of Development
Sarah Brooks, Development Manager
Beth Fung, Senior Grants Manager
Juliet Kline, Development Assistant
Danny Reed, Regional Director of Development
Pharelda Scott, Development Assistant
Sarah Snik, Individual Giving Manager
OPERATIONS
Amin Kakeh, Comptroller
Todd Peterson, Senior Manager of Technology
Diana Sun, Staff Accountant
Real Thornton, Director of Administration
COMMUNICATIONS
Sarah Mahoney, Communications Specialist
Aaron Pickering, Senior Communications Specialist
DAVID STERN
David Stern is Chief Executive Officer for Equal Justice Works. He is responsible for articulating the vision for the organization, working with the Board of Directors to develop the strategic directions for the organization, raising necessary funds, and ensuring the overall health of the organization. He joined the staff in 1992 as the first Director of the Fellowships program, and became Executive Director in June 1995. Since then, the organization’s budget has grown from roughly $1.5 million to $8 million, the staff has grown from eight to 36, the number of postgraduate fellowships has grown from roughly 20 to more than 100; and more than 95 percent of ABA-accredited schools are members of Equal Justice Works. David graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1985 and clerked for two federal judges in Baltimore. He then worked for a small public interest law firm that represented whistleblowers in government and private industry, as well as individuals discriminated against on the basis of their sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, or age. In 2008, David was named one of Washington's greatest lawyers of the past 30 years by the Legal Times.
PAUL IGASAKI
Paul Igasaki is Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Equal Justice Works where he provides leadership on programs and operations. Prior to joining Equal Justice Works, he was Executive Director of the Rights Working Group, a coalition of organizations working to restore civil rights lost since 9/11/01. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as Vice Chair, acting Chair and Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1994 to 2002. Previously, Paul was Executive Director of the Asian Law Caucus in California, Mayor Harold Washington’s Liaison to Asian Americans and counsel to the Chicago Human Relations Commission, Washington Representative for the Japanese American Citizens League, Staff Director of the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono/Private Bar Involvement Project and Reginald Heber Smith Fellow to Legal Services of Northern California. Paul is a graduate of Northwestern University and the UC Davis School of Law.
KASHYAP CHOKSI
Kashyap Choksi is the Director of the Law School Advocacy and Outreach Unit at Equal Justice Works. He has broad non-profit leadership and management experience, having served as the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at National 4-H Council and as a Senior Associate at Public Education Network. He has experience in organizational development, strategic planning, and business development, and has designed, implemented and assessed programs and initiatives in a wide breadth of issue areas in collaboration with corporations, foundations, non-profits, and the federal government. Kashyap graduated with a Ph.D. in Public Administration and policy from Virginia Tech, and holds a M.A. in International Affairs and a Master’s degree in Public Administration, both awarded by Ohio University. He credits his B.A. in Economics from Loyola College, Madras, India, and his Law degree awarded by the University of Madras, as silent springboards for his current work.
CAIT CLARKE
Cait Clarke was appointed Director of Public Interest Law Opportunities in May 2007. Cait is a respected legal educator who comes to Equal Justice Works with 18 years of experience teaching, training, and consulting on the law and legal affairs. Most recently as the director of Clarke Consulting she provided leadership and management consulting to nonprofit organizations, public defense and legal aid programs, including Equal Justice Works. She served as a principal and the legal education specialist with Watershed Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based firm specializing in negotiation training. Cait was the founding director of the National Defender Leadership Institute at the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, which develops leadership capacity in public defense practitioners nationwide. Cait began her legal career practicing criminal defense representing the indigent in Maryland Courts. She then moved to New Orleans to join the law faculty of Loyola Law School as an Associate Professor of Law. Upon completion of her doctorate degree at Harvard, she taught at the Kennedy School of Government's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and ran the Executive Session on Public Defense. In her community work, Cait serves on the Board of Directors of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and is a founding director of Gardenia House Inc., which provides shelter to migrant women and children. She was the co-chair of the National Consortium on Community Problem Solving and recently served as a member of the Advisory Board overseeing the development of the National Center for State Court's new Problem Solving Justice Toolkit. She is extensively published, with law reviews, articles, book chapters and book reviews to her credit. Cait holds her S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center's Criminal Justice Clinic, J.D. from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, and B.S. from Villanova University's School of Commerce and Finance. A native of Washington DC, Cait is happy to be back in DC living with her husband, the writer and editor Neil Shister, her son, William, and spending time with her step-daughters, Kate and Amelia, in New York City.
HEATHER JARVIS
Heather is a national expert on educational debt and the financial barriers facing law graduates. She has been a leading player nationally in advocating for and now interpreting the new federal student loan forgiveness law, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. She has contributed to legislative proposals for the House Education Committee and others in Congress, made several presentations to law school faculty, administrators and students, and has given numerous media interviews on educational debt and the new law. Heather currently serves as Vice Chair of the ABA Section of Legal Education’s Committee on Government Relations and Student Financial Aid. As Senior Program Manager for Law School Advocacy at Equal Justice Works, Heather authored the 2006 study Financing the Future, Responses to the Rising Debt of Law Students. Heather earned her J.D. cum laude from Duke University School of Law in 1998 and has eight years’ experience as a capital defense attorney.
ANDY ZOVKO
Andy Zovko joined Equal Justice Works as Director of Development in March 2008 to lead the Development team. Over the previous 18 years he raised funds for a wide variety of causes including environmental protection, poverty assistance, and support for military families. Andy’s experience runs the gamut of the fundraising profession from membership (Environmental Defense, The Wilderness Society), to grants management (Catholic Charities of Washington, DC), to major and planned giving (Armenian Assembly of America, National Family Caregivers Association.) He first encountered Equal Justice Works in 2005 while raising funds for the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, a host organization for Equal Justice Works Fellows. Andy has been active in the Association of Fundraising Professionals since 1994. He holds a Masters Degree from Oxford University in Syriac Studies and a Bachelors Degree from Princeton University in Near Eastern Studies.