Riley H. Ross III is a Partner at Mincey Fitzpatrick Ross, LLC. He has extensive experience in the areas of civil rights litigation, federal criminal law, white-collar criminal defense, Title IX litigation, employment discrimination and general civil litigation. Mr. Ross is an experienced trial lawyer having tried numerous cases in his previous positions as the owner of Ross Legal Practice, LLC; as an attorney with litigation powerhouses Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Drinker Biddle & Reath, and Tucker Law Group in Philadelphia; and as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Norfolk, VA. Mr. Ross is the 2023 recipient of The Honorable William F. Hall Award, presented by The Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia, Inc. and the 2021 recipient of the Champion Award, presented by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Civil and Equal Rights Committee to an individual who champions for civil rights for all Pennsylvanians. Mr. Ross has been named a “2009 Lawyer on The Fast Track,” a “2010 Pennsylvania Rising Star,” and a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer® each year since 2014. Mr. Ross is an active member of the national, state and local legal communities. Mr. Ross is a member and past Chair of the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Mr. Ross was appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve on the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee and as a Hearing Committee Member for the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ross is also an appointed member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Commission. Mr. Ross serves on the Board of Directors of the following organizations: Defenders Association of Philadelphia (Secretary); American Civil Liberties Union – Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA, Vice President); No Longer Bound; and Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. Mr. Ross is an active member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association by serving as a member of the House of Delegates; and as a member of Civil and Equal Rights Committee, the Minority Bar Committee and the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee. Mr. Ross is also a member of the Villanova Law Inn of Courts. Mr. Ross is also licensed to practice in Virginia and the District of Columbia. Mr. Ross received a B.S. in Psychology from Longwood College, a M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Western Kentucky University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia. After law school, Mr. Ross clerked for the Honorable James C. Cacheris, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Sara Jacobson is the Executive Director of the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania. She has worked for PDAP since 2020. Before joining PDAP, Sara served as the Director of Trial Advocacy and an Associate Professor at Temple Law School, where she taught Trial Advocacy, Evidence and Criminal Procedure, and worked with Temple’s International LLM program in Beijing, At Temple she also helped to run Temple’s National Trial Team and co-chaired the Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion. Before coming to Temple, Sara was an assistant Public Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. During her time there, she tried thousands of cases and was the Assistant Chief of the Juvenile Unit. Her first job as a Public Defender was in Berks County. Sara serves as the Chair of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Rules of Evidence Committee and trains judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court staff and law school communities on transgender competency in the courtroom and in the classroom. In 2020 she was recognized by her peers in the trial advocacy community with the Edward D. Ohlbaum award, and in 2022 was recognized by the Bar Association with the Cheryl Ingram award.

Abigail is a staff
attorney at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape
providing holistic legal services to survivors of sexual violence.
They currently serve as the President of the Washington County Bar
Association Young Lawyer’s Division and are a member of the
Pennsylvania and American Bar Associations. Abigail
previously worked at a Southwestern PA Legal Aid and served as their
DEI liaison to the PA Legal Aid Network. They earned their B.S. from
the Pennsylvania State University and their J.D. and Master’s of
Social Work Degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Lois M. Vitti of the Oakmont (Pittsburgh)-based Vitti Law Group, Inc., has over 25 years of experience handling matters arising out of real estate, probate, estate, family, bankruptcy, and commercial matters at all stages of litigation as well as mediation, conciliation, trials and appeals.  Ms. Vitti is passionate about helping clients through difficult circumstances and advises individuals and corporations in dispute resolution and asset protection. Ms. Vitti is trained as a mediator and collaborative attorney.  Ms. Vitti speaks often speaks at conferences, universities and seminars.  She volunteers frequently and serves on numerous committees, organizations, community groups and Boards of Directors.   Ms. Vitti practices in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Ms. Hess is a partner in the Immigration law firm of Landau, Hess, Simon, & Doebley located in Philadelphia. She has been practicing immigration law for over 41 years. Ms. Hess is a past member of the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association, currently serves as Co-Chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Immigration Committee, as Co-Chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Immigration Committee, as Co-Chair of the Philadelphia American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) CPB Liaison Committee and as a Board member of HIAS PA. Ms. Hess previously served as President of HIAS, as Chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of AILA and as a member of AILA’s national U.S. Department of Labor Liaison and VSC Liaison Committees. Her practice focuses on representing entrepreneurs, employers and their employees, particularly in the medical, pharmaceutical, IT and university communities. Ms. Hess, who is fluent in Spanish, also represents individuals in family-based cases and serves as counsel to the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia. She has continually been listed in Best (Immigration) Lawyers in America (Best Lawyer of the Year 2014 and 2018), Super Lawyers (Pennsylvania) and in The International Who’s Who of Corporate (Immigration) Lawyers. In 2015 and 2016 Super Lawyers recognized her as one of the top 50 women lawyers in Pennsylvania. In 2018, she received the Matthew Baxter Mentorship award, named after her late good friend and colleague, who will forever be in her heart. In December of 2019, she received the PBA Immigration Law Pro Bono Award. 

Mike Scott is the founder of Mike Scott Law, LLC and a member of the Board of CeaseFirePa, an organization dedicated to preventing gun violence in Pennsylvania. He serves on Cease Fire’s Litigation Committee. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and has litigated in state and federal trial and appellate courts for the past 46 years. He has always had an active pro bono practice and is most proud of his efforts in the 5th Circuit and Supreme Court challenging Mississippi’s 1894 state flag, with its incorporation of the Confederate Flag, as an unconstitutional state sponsored endorsement of white supremacy. 

Ryan Allen Hancock is of counsel at Willig, Williams & Davidson and Chair of the firm’s Employment Law Group. Prior to joining Willig, Williams & Davidson, he was Assistant Chief Counsel with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the Commonwealth’s civil rights enforcement agency. As Assistant Chief Counsel, Mr. Hancock successfully litigated a wide range of discrimination matters including but not limited to claims of: sexual orientation, religious accommodation, disability race, sex, and denial of employment based on a criminal record. He is the principal author of the Commission’s proposed policy entitled Disparate Impact Discrimination Implications Related to a Denial of Employment Based on a Criminal Record. Mr. Hancock received his law degree from Rutgers School of Law in 2003 and subsequently clerked in Camden County Superior Court, Criminal Division for the Honorable David G. Eynon. He co-founded and is currently Board Chair for the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity (PLSE) and its Criminal Record Expungement Project (C-REP). Mr. Hancock is the author of The Double Bind: Obstacles to Employment and Resources for Survivors of the Criminal Justice System, 15 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 515 2011-2012 and has served on the board of Penn Law’s Journal of Law & Social Change. He also served as the supervising attorney for Penn Law’s International Human Rights Advocates (IHRA), was a member of the Bethesda Project’s Young Professional Advisory Board, and co-convened the Drexel Summer Theory Institute at the Earle Mack School of Law from 2011-2013. Mr. Hancock has also been a Part-time Lecturer on Trial Advocacy at Rutgers School of Law from 2016 to the present.

Ms. Roper is Of Counsel with Langer, Grogan & Diver P.C., a Philadelphia boutique litigation firm dedicated to seeking social and economic justice for consumers and small businesses. The firm’s expertise is in class actions and other complex litigation, focused in the areas of antitrust, consumer protection, and civil rights. Ms. Roper joined the firm from the ACLU of Pennsylvania, where she served as Deputy Legal Director. At the ACLU, Mary Catherine led an active docket of state and federal court cases spanning a broad range of civil liberties issues, including freedom of speech, criminal justice reform, government transparency, racial and ethnic justice, LGBT equality, and immigrant rights. She is widely recognized as a preeminent litigation strategist, trial lawyer, and appellate advocate. Before joining the ACLU, Ms. Roper was a partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP), where she had a diversified complex litigation practice with extensive experience in class actions, consumer protection, corporate governance, defamation and commercial litigation. She represented individual and corporate clients from a wide range of industries, appearing in state and federal courts across the country, as well as in mass tort and federal court multidistrict proceedings. Prior to joining Drinker Biddle & Reath, Ms. Roper clerked for the Honorable Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and served a year with the Disabilities Law Project as the first recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation Public Interest Fellowship. Ms. Roper graduated, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1993. She earned her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1987. Ms. Roper grew up in Southern California, but now considers herself a Philadelphian and a Phillies fan.

Sigal Ben-Porath is professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also a member of the philosophy and the political science departments, and a fellow at the Institute for Law and Philosophy. She received her doctorate in political philosophy from Tel-Aviv university in 2000. She was a fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, the Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. She recently published the books Free Speech on Campus (Penn Press, 2017) as well as Making Up Our Mind (with Michael Johanek, University of Chicago Press, 2019).  Her next book is Cancel Wars (University of Chicago Press 2022). She chaired Penn’s Committee on Open Expression 2015-2019, chaired Penn Press Faculty Advisory Board, and was a founding member on the board of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy. In recent years she has offered guidance to many campuses on policy development and responses to controversies surrounding speech.

Ms. Mazur was appointed to the post of Honorary Consul of Ukraine to Philadelphia on July 23, 2019. Her consular district is Pennsylvania. Ms. Mazur practiced law in Ukraine where she held various positions including working at the Antimonopoly Committee of the Lviv Region. A native of Lviv, Ukraine, she moved to the United States 20 years ago and received an LLM degree in 2009 from Temple University Beasley School of Law. She is admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. Ms. Mazur is a partner at the Mazur Law Firm, PC, with a primary focus on immigration law. The firm is located in Huntingdon Valley.  She was also appointed and previously served as an advisor to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations and the Foreign Relations Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament. Ms. Mazur has extensive experience in all aspects of immigration law with substantial involvement in hundreds of cases related to the US/Ukraine consular processing; business and investment immigration; family immigration and protection from domestic violence in immigration law; international adoption; asylum requests from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia, before both the asylum office and the immigration court; general experience in area of domestic relations issues, including protection from abuse matters, divorce and custody; property law; trusts and estates, including cases involving multi-jurisdictional issues between the United States and Ukraine; specific issues relating to family, real estate, criminal, commercial, constitutional and other laws in Ukraine, Russia, and other countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. 

Before joining Immigration Law Options as Of Counsel, Judith Bernstein-Baker, M.S.W., Esq., was Executive Director of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) PA, a non-profit agency providing legal, resettlement, social, and support services to immigrants and refugees, for over 18 years. She specializes in the representation of vulnerable populations such as asylum seekers, juveniles, and victims of interpersonal violence and crime. Ms. Bernstein-Baker was the founding Director of the Public Service Program at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was named Honorary Fellow of Penn Law School. Recent awards include the Philadelphia Chapter of the Immigration Immigration Lawyers’ Association Pro Bono Award (2022);  American Immigration Lawyers Service Award (2017); the inaugural Pennsylvania Bar Pro Bono Award (2015); the Philadelphia Bar Foundation Award (2013); and awards for community service and advocacy from the African Family Health Organization and Pennsylvania Resettlement Program, as well as the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission Award and the Equal Justice Award from Community Legal Services. In April, 2017, by resolution, Ms. Bernstein-Baker was recognized by Philadelphia City Council for her efforts on behalf of immigrants and refugees. Ms. Bernstein-Baker teaches immigration law and policy at Philadelphia Community College, Chestnut Hill College and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Temple. She co-authored the text, Understanding Immigration Law and Practice, and is an active member of AILA, serving as Co-chair of Philadelphia AILA’s Pro Bono Committee. As a community member, Ms. Bernstein-Baker co-chairs the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee at her synagogue, Mishkan Shalom, and serves as a resource to members of the Northwest Philadelphia area concerned about immigration.

Samantha Hull is a parent of two young children and board director for the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association and Hosting Solutions and Library Consulting (HSLC). She is a school librarian and district supervisor. She works closely with the public library and serves as a liaison by informing and aligning programming and opportunities for students and community members. Her work is rooted in lifelong learning and accessible resources. In 2017, Samantha was named an American Library Association Emerging Leader. She holds an undergraduate degree in English from Lebanon Valley College and a Masters of Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Instructional Design and Technology from Old Dominion University. She has been a librarian for nine years and previously was an English teacher. In the past year, the increased rate of book challenges, attempted bans and censorship allowed Samantha to step into a role of advocate and activist. She was featured in panels, articles, and a congressional hearing on the topic of censorship within public schools, school librarians, and public libraries.

Christine K. Castro (she/her/hers) joined the Women’s Law Project staff in 2017 and primarily works on equitable access to abortion and reproductive health care through legal representation, policy advocacy, litigation, and community education. Christine’s work includes providing legal assistance to Pennsylvania abortion providers on a wide range of legal issues and representing young people seeking judicial bypass to access abortion care. In 2021, Christine was honored as an Emerging Activist in Women’s Health Care by the National Women’s Health Network. Christine first joined WLP in 2016 as a joint If When How Reproductive Justice State Fellow for WLP and New Voices for Reproductive Justice. During her time at New Voices, Christine worked on state, local, and federal policy advocacy focused on reproductive justice issues that centered the needs of Black women, femmes, and girls.  Christine earned a degree in Political Science from Temple University, and her J.D. from Roger Williams University School of Law.

Professor Mutcherson is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a recipient of the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for excellence in public law courses and outstanding qualities of citizenship and leadership as well as the Kirkland and Ellis Fellowship for post-graduate public interest work. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers Law School-Camden in 2002, Professor Mutcherson was an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering at the New York University School of Law, a consulting attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights), and a Staff Attorney at the HIV Law Project. She teaches Family Law, Torts, Health Law Policy: The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, South African Constitutional Law, and Bioethics, Babies & Babymaking. Professor Mutcherson has served as a Senior Fellow/Sabbatical Visitor at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and as a fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. Her scholarly work encompasses family and health law and uses health law topics to study the relationship between families and the state. Professor Mutcherson writes on issues related to reproductive justice, with a particular focus on assisted reproduction and its relationship to how the law understands family. Her work has appeared in Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Nevada Law Review, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, and other publications. Professor Mutcherson has been heavily involved in diversity efforts at Rutgers School of Law and across the Rutgers campuses. She has served as the Co-Chair of the Chancellor’s Committee on Institutional Equity and Diversity on the Camden campus, the President’s Council on Institutional Equity and Diversity, and the Working Group on Faculty Diversity. In 2011, Professor Mutcherson received the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award and the Women’s Law Caucus Faculty Appreciation Award and in 2013 she was the recipient of the Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award.

Mr. Griffin is a founding partner of Surin & Griffin, P.C. He specializes in deportation defense and administrative and federal appellate work for non-citizens. In recent years, Mr. Griffin has complemented his practice as an adjunct professor of Human Rights at Drexel University School of Law, an election observer in El Salvador, and as a human rights investigator in Haiti and Mexico. Prior to becoming an immigration lawyer, he was an associate at Choate, Hall & Stewart in Boston, where he practiced white-collar criminal defense and coordinated the firm’s pro bono political asylum program. Prior to becoming an attorney, Mr. Griffin spent 10 years as a Federal Probation and Parole Officer, working in the federal courts in New York City and Massachusetts. He received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, his M.A. in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and his A.B. in Sociology and Spanish from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Mr. Griffin is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Mr. Love is the
former Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project and
currently in private practice. The PILP provides free civil legal assistance
to over 100,000 institutionalized persons in the Commonwealth. He is a member
of the Pennsylvania Bar, the US District Courts for the Eastern, Middle and
Western Districts and the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In his
35 years as Executive Director, he has handled hundreds of cases on behalf of
institutionalized persons including civil rights cases in the aforementioned
courts. He has litigated a dozen cases in the US Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, arguing several successfully. He has tried a dozen civil
rights jury trials to verdict with several successful outcomes. He has
counseled over a half dozen class action lawsuits that resulted in
substantial improvements in local state and federal prisons and jails. These
cases and others have generated over one million dollars in attorney fees for
his organization. He has written numerous articles about criminal justice
issues for local newspapers and magazines, Bar association publications and
other local media outlets. He has appeared on several local radio and
televisions shows discussing criminal justice issues. He is the past
President of the Pennsylvania Prison Society. He is a board member of 4
non-profit organizations and President of the Board of the Community Action
Agency of Montgomery County [CADCOM]. He is the past President of the Board
of Directors of the ARC Alliance. He is a former chairperson of the
Philadelphia Bar Association’s Public Interest Section and their
representative on the Board of Governors. He is a recipient of the 2000 Bill
of Rights Award presented by the Criminal Law Section of the Federal Bar
Association of Philadelphia. He was also awarded the Peter Cicchino Alumni
Award by his law school. He is a graduate of Lower Merion High School, Ohio
State University and the Washington College of Law at American University in
Washington, D.C. He has been practicing public interest law for forty years.

Professor Ravenell joined Villanova Law School in 2006 and began serving as Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development in June of 2019.  She teaches Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Civil Rights Litigation, and Police Conduct. Professor Ravenell’s scholarship focuses on § 1983, the federal civil remedy for constitutional deprivations, and examines the points at which § 1983 jurisprudence converges with other areas of the law. She is an expert on qualified immunity, municipal liability, and federal civil rights litigation against police officials. In 2020 she contributed to the American Constitution Society’s What’s the Big Idea? project, a collection of essays by leading scholars in the legal field recommending policy changes to incoming federal and state administrations. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in Temple Law Review, North Carolina Review, Texas Law Review and other leading journals. Professor Ravenell received her B.A. from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.  While at Columbia, she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Following law school, Professor Ravenell was an associate with Wilmer, Cutler, & Pickering in Washington D.C. and clerked for the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson of the United Stated District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia before joining the College of William and Mary law faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor.

Leonore F. (Lee) Carpenter is an associate professor at Rutgers-Camden School of Law where she teaches Legal Analysis, Writing and Research, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and the Law, Professional Responsibility, Appellate Advocacy, and Introduction to Public Interest Law. Her publications include: Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, and its Effect on Pennsylvania’s LGBTQ Community, 91 Pa. B.A. Q. 103 (2020); One Sequin at a Time: Lessons on State Constitutions and Incremental Change from the Campaign for Marriage Equality, 75 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 255 (2020) (with E. Margolis); Walking While Trans: Profiling of Transgender Women by Law Enforcement, and the Problem of Proof, 24 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 5 (2017) (with B. Marshall); The Next Phase: Positioning the Post-Obergefell LGBT Rights Movement to Bridge the Gap Between Formal and Lived Equality, 13 Stan. J. C.R. & C.L. 255 (2017); and Getting Queer Priorities Straight: How Direct Legal Services Can Democratize Issue Prioritization in the LGBT Rights Movement, 17 U. Penn. J. Law and Social Change 107 (2014). Prior to joining the Rutgers Law School faculty, Professor Carpenter spent 14 years on the faculty at Temple University Beasley School of Law, where she received a University Senate Faculty Service Award. She also previously served as Legal Director at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, a public interest agency that provided direct legal services, education, and policy reform advocacy for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians.  In recognition of Professor Carpenter’s civil rights advocacy work, she has been awarded the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Cheryl Ingram Advocate for Justice Award, and was named one of the 2012 40 Best LGBTQ+ Attorneys Under 40. Professor Carpenter is a 2000 graduate of Temple Law, where she received the Beth Cross Award for commitment to underserved populations. Following graduation from law school, Professor Carpenter completed a clerkship with the Honorable Harold B. Wells, III of the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division.

Kristina Moon (she/her) is a Senior Attorney in the Philadelphia office of the Education Law Center. She supports ELC’s litigation and policy advocacy across all issue areas. Kristina’s current and recent work includes ELC’s lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for a more adequate and equitable school funding system and a federal class action on behalf of former students abused and denied education at Glen Mills Schools, ELC’s campaign for Inclusive Schools and Honest Education, and advocacy on behalf of English Learners, LGBTQ youth and students in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. Previously, Kristina worked as a staff attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, where she used litigation and administrative advocacy to advance the rights of incarcerated individuals and specialized in young adult advocacy. Prior to that, as a litigation associate at Dechert LLP she coordinated the firm’s efforts in a federal civil rights action challenging the excessive use of solitary confinement for youth with mental health needs in delinquency placement. Kristina also worked as an attorney with Juvenile Law Center where she was a member of the Luzerne County “kids-for-cash” litigation team and employed legislative and litigation strategies to combat the criminalization of consensual teen technology use.  Kristina is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and Temple University Beasley School of Law.  Prior to law school, Kristina worked in direct service with underserved youth and families through an AmeriCorps violence-prevention position in Seattle, WA and an after-school program in Ithaca, NY.

Prof. Cohen is a professor of law at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law courses as well as courses in sex discrimination and reproductive rights. His scholarship explores gender construction in the law and abortion providers and provision. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but not Abortion (Beacon 2025, with Carole Joffe) as well as Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Oxford 2015, with Krysten Connon), and Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America (California 2020, with Carole Joffe). After graduating from Columbia Law School, Professor Cohen clerked for Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court and Judge Warren J. Ferguson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before joining Drexel, he was a fellow and a staff attorney for the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia. Professor Cohen continues to litigate cases with the Women’s Law Project, including a win earlier this year before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a challenge to Pennsylvania’s refusal to use Medicaid funds for abortion care.

Currently in private practice, Ms. Shuster was Chief Counsel of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission from 1983-2005. She was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1974 and to the United States Supreme Court in 1978. She served as a Deputy Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Office of Civil Litigation, from 1978-83, as an Assistant Attorney General, Pennsylvania Department of Health, 1977-78, and as an Assistant General Counsel, Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 1974-77. Ms. Shuster has done nation-wide training on employment discrimination for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and for numerous legal and business organizations. She has been a course planner and faculty member for several Pennsylvania Bar Institute courses, including the three previous CERC CLEs on Election Law, the annual CERC Civil Rights Symposia, Practice Before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, Whose Constitution Is It, Anyway?, Errant Judges and Lawyers: What to Do? and Civil Rights: To Preserve and Protect, and many discrimination law courses, covering the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, general discrimination law, sexual harassment, age discrimination and discrimination on the basis of disability. Her discrimination law publications include “The Commonwealth Court and the Interpretation of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act,” Widener Law Journal, 2011, and “Service/Support Animals,” Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly, 2006. Ms. Shuster served as the Civil and Equal Rights Committee’s ambassador to the PBA Diversity Team from 2010-2015. She served on the “Paths to Leadership” panel at the 2012 YLD Summer Meeting, as a member of the PBA Task Force on the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, and as a member of the “Court as Employer Gender Bias Subcommittee Work Group” of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System. Ms. Shuster received her B.A. from Temple University in 1971 and her J.D. from Villanova School of Law in 1974. She is admitted to the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the Middle and Eastern District Courts of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Ms. Shuster is a member of the American Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, where she is a member of the Civil and Equal Rights (Chair of the CLE Committee, past Chair & Co-Chair of CERC), Women in the Profession (Member of the Executive Committee, Co-Chair of the Book Club), Minority Bar, Statutory Law, and Immigration Law Committees. She is a Bencher in the James S. Bowman American Inn of Court and a past president of the Harrisburg Area Women Lawyers Association. In November 2023, Ms. Shuster was the first recipient of the PBA Women in the Profession’s Special Achievement Award which recognizes achievements by a female member of the legal profession whose actions and work have promoted the betterment of women in the law and have enhanced services to women in general. She was included in the 2021 Women in the Profession Report Card’s “Profiles of Women Advocating for Social Change.” In 2020, Ms. Shuster was awarded the PBA Civil & Equal Rights Champion Award, an annual award established by the Civil & Equal Rights Committee to honor an individual who champions civil rights for all Pennsylvanians.

Ms. Gross is the CEO and President of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. She is also a member of the Minor Judiciary Education Board of Pennsylvania. She is a member of Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law’s Advisory Board. Ms. Gross is an adjunct professor at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law teaching a class in complex commercial and class action litigation as she had previously concentrated her legal practice her practice on plaintiffs’ securities fraud, antitrust and consumer class actions. She was previously Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association and previously President of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation. Ms. Gross received her B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and her J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1985.

Jada S. Greenhowe joined the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (“PHFA”) as Assistant Counsel in 2014. In her role as Assistant Counsel, Jada provides legal advice regarding an array of topics such as bankruptcy, credit reporting and third-party vendor management and oversight. She counsels PHFA’s secondary mortgage program, the Homeowner’s Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program, and represents the Agency in civil litigation matters including Actions to Quiet Title and Commonwealth Court appeals. She oversees federal and state regulatory compliance pertaining to the mortgage servicing industry, such as Act 91 (Homeowner’s Emergency Assistance Act), Act 6 (the Loan Interest and Protection Law) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act for PHFA’s Single Family mortgage program. In addition, she handles multi-party transactional real estate closings involving investor partnerships and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits in connection with PHFA’s Multifamily program. In 2013, Ms. Greenhowe obtained her Juris Doctor from the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Law. She earned a B.A. in Communication Rhetoric from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009.Ms. Greenhowe is admitted to practice in the Western, Middle and Eastern District Courts of Pennsylvania. In addition, she is a member of the American Bar Association, the Dauphin County Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association where she is a member of the PBA House of Delegates and where she also serves as co- Chair of the Civil and Equal Rights Committee (CERC), and is the co-Chair of CERC’s CLE Subcommittee, as well as its Young Lawyer’s Division (“YLD”) Liaison. In addition, she serves as the At-Large Chair to Diversity for the YLD, is co-Vice Chair of the In-House Counsel Committee and is the YLD Liaison to the Environmental and Energy Law Section. In 2019, Jada was selected as a member of the 2019-2020 class of the PBA’s Bar Leadership Institute. She is also the 2021 recipient of the Minority Bar Committee’s (“MBC”) Rising Star award and is the current Chair of the MBC Houston’s Rising Star Award Committee.

Mr. Geffen has been a staff attorney at the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia since 2010, where he works to protect access to voting, healthcare, and employment. Mr. Geffen is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and Princeton University. He represented the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and 18 individual voters in their successful lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s congressional plan as a partisan gerrymander. Mr. Geffen was also a member of the legal team that blocked Pennsylvania’s photo ID requirement for voting. In addition, he is a Vice Chair of the City of Philadelphia’s Police Advisory Commission, and he is a leader of the Philadelphia Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society.