William F. Alderman is a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in San Francisco, where he specializes in commercial litigation, dispute resolution and counseling relating to securities law, technology, business torts, employee benefits and other matters. He is a 1970 graduate of Yale Law School, serves as a director of Bay Area Legal Aid, and has previously been a director of the Bar Association of San Francisco (audit committee chair), the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the Bay Area chapter of the National MS Society, and the St. Thomas More Society of San Francisco (president). He has served as a court-appointed mediator, arbitrator and evaluator for the U.S. District Court since 1988. His career-long commitment to pro bono representation has included collaboration with DRA and other disability rights organizations on numerous matters, work on significant Supreme Court cases such as Bakke v. Regents of the University of California and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and recruitment and supervision of other Orrick lawyers on hundreds of matters covering a wide variety of public interest issues such as eviction defense, human trafficking, minority businesses, discrimination and consumer protection. His pro bono efforts have been recognized by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, which honored him with its Robert J. Sproul award in 1996. Mr. Alderman is a co-editor of the Securities Reform Act Litigation Reporter, has written chapters for the treatises Business and Commercial Litigation in the Federal Courts and Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, and writes and speaks frequently on securities and other litigation topics.
Leslie Aoyama is Diversity Affairs Director for Nordstrom, Northern California/Hawaii region. After graduating from UC Davis, Ms. Aoyama joined Nordstrom, Inc. in 1985. She has served in various HR roles within the organization and in her current position as Regional Diversity Affairs Director for over 15 years. Ms. Aoyama supports the full line Nordstrom and RACK stores in her region by leading the message and importance of diversity and inclusion in all aspects of the business – PEOPLE, PRODUCT SERVICE and COMMUNITY, through educating and training employees on employment related subjects, supporting recruitment and community outreach efforts and managing employee relations matters. Previously, she was involved with the California School for the Deaf, Riverside and The Center for Independent Living in Berkeley. Most recently, Ms. Aoyama has been serving on the San Francisco Mayor’s Committee for Employment of Persons with Disabilities.
Daniel L. Brown is a partner with Sheppard Mullen in the Antitrust and Business Trial Practice Groups in the firm's New York office. He is also the Co-Chairperson of the firm's Electronic Discovery Group. In addition, Mr. Brown is the Chair of the firm's Pro Bono Committee.
Mr. Brown regularly represents clients in high stakes, complex, antitrust, securities and commercial litigations and arbitrations, including class actions. He has particular experience litigating significant business disputes involving contracts, securities, joint ventures, partnerships, fraud and fiduciary duties.
Mr. Brown also frequently counsels parties in the hospitality industry, and represents owners, franchisees, and managers in proceedings arising from management and franchise agreements.
Mr. Brown is the U.S. National Contributor on the latest U.S. developments in antitrust private enforcement for the Global Competition Litigation Review, a leading private enforcement journal on the European market.
Mr. Brown also is the author of a comprehensive chapter on U.S. antitrust and federal civil procedure in International and Comparative Competition Litigation, a treatise comparing the competition laws in over 20 jurisdictions world-wide.
Mark A. Chavez is a partner at Chavez and Gertler, a leading firm representing plaintiffs in major consumer class action and private attorney general cases. Mr. Chavez received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1979, where he was the Managing Editor of the Stanford Environmental Law Annual. Mr. Chavez has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation and the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
Linda Dardarian joined Goldstein Borgen Dardarian & Ho in September 1991. She became a partner of the firm in January 1998. Ms. Dardarian has extensive experience in litigating class action employment discrimination, disability access, and wage and hour cases, and has litigated landmark citizen suits brought to enforce the Clean Water Act. Ms. Dardarian was named in "Northern California Super Lawyers - The Top Attorneys in Northern California," Law & Politics August 2005, 2006 and 2007 for her employment law work. She was noted in California Lawyer Magazine’s December 2000 listing of the Lawyers of the Year for her work, with co-counsel Lainey Feingold, in making financial institutions’ automated teller machines, websites and printed materials accessible to persons with vision impairments. She was also awarded the 2007 Special Achievement Award by the American Council of the Blind and the 2001 Access Award by the American Foundation for the Blind, for representing the California Council of the Blind in obtaining major financial institutions’ commitments to install talking ATMs for persons with vision impairments. Ms. Dardarian has an AV Peer Review rating with Martindale-Hubbell.
Evan Davis is senior counsel at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, based in the New York office. His practice focuses on litigation and other forms of international and domestic dispute resolution. He has handled complex securities, merger and acquisition, contract disputes, art and museum restitution law, and insurance coverage litigations. He has extensive arbitration and mediation experience in complex domestic and international commercial cases as a party-appointed arbitrator, an arbitration tribunal chair, a mediator and an advocate in arbitration and mediation.
Mr. Davis is a recognized authority on New York law and has argued frequently in the New York Court of Appeals, the State’s highest court. He has also provided expert opinions on matters of professional ethics. He served as President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from May 2000 through May 2002, and as Vice Chair of the Trustees of Columbia University, where he also chaired the Finance Committee. He has been recognized by Who’s Who in the World, Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Experts in Commercial Arbitration, Law Business Research's The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and Who's Who of Commercial Litigators, Mondaq's Guide to the World's Leading Commercial Arbitration Advisors, The Legal 500 U.S. and The Best Lawyers in America.
Clients for whom he has recently worked include Bank of America (arbitration), Barclay’s Bank (securities litigation and contract arbitration), Lloyds of London (Beazley syndicates) (insurance coverage), General Electric (insurance coverage), the American Museum of Natural History (Native American claims litigation), the Guggenheim Foundation and MoMA (art law litigation), Sharp Corporation (commercial litigation), United Technologies Corporation (arbitration and trade practices litigation), Fitch, Inc. (securities litigation), Goldman Sachs (creditors rights and antitrust litigation), HSBC (securities litigation) and KBC, D.E. Shaw, the Bank of Toyko-Mitsubishi UFJ, Calamos and others (commercial litigation).
Mr. Davis began work at the Firm in 1975 and became a partner in 1978. In September 1985, he left the Firm to serve as Counsel to New York State Governor Mario M. Cuomo, rejoining the Firm in February 1991. Mr. Davis became senior counsel at the Firm in July 2012.
Mr. Davis clerked for Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Harold Leventhal of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mr. Davis received a J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Columbia Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and an undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Harvard College. He is a member of the Bar of New York.
Mr. Davis was awarded the Medal for Excellence by Columbia University in 1987, the Emory Buckner Award for Distinguished Public Service by the Federal Bar Council in 1990, an environmental award by the Wildlife Conservation Society in 1995, the Milton Gould Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy by the Office of the Appellate Defender in 1996, the William J. Brennan Jr. Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse by the Brennan Center in 1999, the Law and Society Award by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest in 2000, the 1846 Award by the New York Correctional Association in 2001, the Whitney North Seymour Award by the Federal Bar Council in 2002, the Servant of Justice Award by the Episcopal Diocese of New York in 2004 and the Servant of Justice Award by the Legal Aid Society in 2008. He was the honoree at the New York City Bar Twelfth Night musical roast in 2010. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General in 1998.
Mr. Davis is a member of the American Law Institute, and the board of Governors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, New York. He is a Director of the Center for Family Representation and Episcopal Charities, a Trustee of The Spence School where he heads the Admissions Committee and is a member of the Advisory Council of New York Common Cause. He is a Warden of Trinity Church Wall Street. He formerly chaired the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Public Education and its Commission on Youth Education for Citizenship.
Ernest Galvan is a partner at Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP. He assists clients in difficult and complex matters involving actual or potential litigation. Mr. Galvan has worked with clients to resolve a wide range of problems, including business formation and dissolution, commercial disputes, employment law matters, disability access compliance, and attorney fee disputes.
Mr. Galvan's practice includes both trial and appellate matters. He has successfully briefed and argued cases in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of California.
Mr. Galvan is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and of Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk to Judge Dean D. Pregerson of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Mr. Galvan has spoken on constitutional law and policy issues at hearings, seminars and conferences presented by the California State Assembly, the American Constitution Society, George Washington University Law School, Boalt Hall School of Law, Georgetown Law Center, and Yale Law School.
Lucy Lee Helm joined Starbucks Coffee Company in 1999. As senior vice president and deputy general counsel in Starbucks Law & Corporate Affairs Department, Ms. Helm leads the Litigation and Brand Protection team. This team supports the Company’s litigation, intellectual property, and marketing and advertising communications. Ms. Helm previously led the Starbucks Global Business (Commercial) team, the Litigation and Employment team and, for several years, managed Starbucks corporate records management program. Ms. Helm also serves as the executive sponsor of the Starbucks Law Department pro bono committee.
In addition to her work at Starbucks, Ms. Helm currently serves as board chair of the Washington YMCA Youth & Government Program, is a board member of Disability Rights Advocates, a non-profit disability law center in Berkeley, CA, and is an active volunteer with Parkview Services, a Seattle based non-profit organization providing housing and other services to persons with disabilities
Ms. Helm received her BA, with highest honors, from the University of Louisville and is a cum laude graduate of the University of Louisville School of Law. Prior to joining Starbucks Law & Corporate Affairs Department, Ms. Helm was a principal at Riddell Williams P.S., in Seattle, where she specialized in commercial, insurance coverage and environmental litigation, and was a commercial litigator with Barnett & Alagia in Louisville, Kentucky. Ms. Helm was also an assistant director and advocacy director at the Center for Accessible Living in Louisville, Kentucky.
Starbucks Coffee Company is the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world, with more than 15,000 retail locations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. Starbucks provides an uplifting experience that enriches people’s lives one moment, one human being, one extraordinary cup of coffee at a time. To share in the experience, visit www.starbucks.com.
Pat Kirkpatrick is the Development Director for Disability Rights Advocates. Prior to her work at DRA, Pat founded and managed a catering business, Clausen House Catering, which was a work training program for adults with developmental/cognitive disabilities. After 6 years of running the highly successful non profit catering business, the Kennedy family supported her with a grant to replicate the business in Massachusetts. Pat has her Master’s degree in teaching English as a second/foreign language and taught English writing and literature at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Extension for several years.
Joshua Konecky is a partner at Schneider Wallace Cottrell Brayton Konecky LLP. Prior to joining Schneider Wallace Cottrell Brayton Konecky LLP in 2004, Mr. Konecky litigated national disability rights class actions at Disability Rights Advocates in Oakland, CA, as well as employment discrimination and minimum wage & hour class actions at the public interest law firm of Saperstein, Goldstein Borgen Dardarian & Ho (GBDH), also in Oakland. His extensive experience includes trial and appellate work in federal and state court. Mr. Konecky also has authored and edited publications on discrimination and employment law, and he frequently lectures on these subjects as well.
Joshua Konecky is a former Skadden Public Interest Law Fellow, U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Argentina, and judicial law clerk for the Honorable Lawrence K. Karlton, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. He holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law (1995) and a B.A. from Haverford College (1990). Mr. Konecky is a member of the State Bar of California, the National Employment Lawyers Association, the California Employment Lawyers Association, and the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association. He sits on the board of directors for the Center on Race Poverty and the Environment
Janice L. Lehrer-Stein has been a resident of San Francisco for 27 years. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Janice graduated from Yale University in 1978 cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American History, attended University of Toronto and Harvard Law Schools, and was admitted to the State Bars of the District of Columbia (1981) and California (1984). Janice practiced labor litigation, constitutional and employment discrimination law with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge in Washington D.C., and Thelen, Marrin, Johnson and Bridges in San Francisco. Janice retired from private law practice to raise her three children, and assist in the management of a family business. Janice has dedicated her time and energy to the non-profit sector, serving as an officer of Medical Research Charities, a federation of more than thirty non-profit organizations seeking treatment and cures for America’s most debilitating disease. Janice has participated as a volunteer leader with the Foundation Fighting Blindness since 1990, serving on the Northern California Board, as chairperson for Walk for Sight fund-raisers for several years, and this year, as chairperson for the San Francisco Dining in the Dark, which seeks to raise more than half a million dollars for research. Blinded by retinitis pigmentosa since 1982, Janice has lectured, toured schools, and participated in local and national forums on the issues of personal dignity, equal access and full participation for the disabled community.
Bonnie Lewkowicz graduated from CSU, Sonoma with a bachelors degree in Therapeutic Recreation and has worked in various capacities for over 25 years advocating for greater access to outdoor recreation and travel for people with disabilities. She founded and is director of Access Northern California, a non-profit organization specializing in accessible travel and recreation. She has authored an access guide to San Francisco and a book about accessible trails titled, "A Wheelchair Rider's Guide: San Francisco Bay and the Nearby Coast" and is a contributing travel writer for several travel magazines . She conducts disability awareness trainings for the hospitality industry and is nationally recognized as a leader in the emerging field of accessible tourism.
Bonnie co-founded AXIS Dance Company, an internationally acclaimed dance company of dancers with and without disabilities. She tours nationally with the company and teaches creative dance to youth and adults of all abilities.
Daniel S. Mason is a senior partner in the law firm of Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP, with offices in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Boston, with an affiliate office in Beijing. Mr. Mason is resident in San Francisco, and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Mr. Mason is a member of the Bars of the State of California and Washington, D.C. He has also been admitted to numerous state and federal trial and appellate courts, as well as the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Mason graduated from University of California, Los Angeles in 1969, with a degree in History, and from Duke University School of Law in 1972. From 1972‐1973, he served as a law clerk to Judge O.D. Hamlin, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.
From 1973‐May, 2000, he was an associate, partner and managing partner of Furth, Fahrner & Mason, San Francisco, and its predecessors. Thereafter, Furth, Fahrner & Mason merged with Zelle Hofmann. From 1988‐1989, Mr. Mason served as Acting General Counsel of Kellogg Company, Battle Creek, Michigan.
During his 38 years at the Bar, Mr. Mason has focused on trial and appellate work, and a wide variety of complex litigation matters in literally hundreds of cases. He has particular expertise in the areas of antitrust, trade regulation, international trade law, unfair competition, intellectual property, statutory construction, as well as a wide variety of contractual and other commercial disputes.
He has appeared on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants in courts in virtually every state in the Nation, as well as in Italy, the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China, and before the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the Food and Drug Administration, and numerous state administrative agencies. He has also served as special antitrust counsel for the States of Arizona and New Mexico, as well as numerous municipalities. He has presented numerous oral arguments before state and federal appellate courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mr. Mason has significant international law experience, representing clients in arbitrations and judicial proceedings in Europe and China, where he was one of the first American lawyers to present formal argument in the court of the People’s Republic of China and be recognized in a published opinion by the Chinese appellate court. He represented the Government of the People's Republic of China on international trade disputes.
Mr. Mason has participated in numerous arbitrations and mediations, and has served as an appointed mediator. He has lectured before lawyers on antitrust, trade regulation, U.S. Civil Procedure, distributorship and trial tactics in the United States, China and Italy. Most recently, he served as the legal consultant to the Supreme Court of China on the implementation of Chinese anti‐monopoly law and, at the invitation of the Chief Justice of the Chinese Supreme Court, conducted a seminar on antitrust principles for the justices of that court, as well as several other Chinese Courts.
Mr. Mason has published articles in legal journals on China’s antitrust statute and E.U. competition law objectives. He was a guest speaker at the International Symposium on WTO legal issues in Shanghai, China.
Mr. Mason is a member of the Board of Directors of a U.S. public company, as well as the Legal Aid
Society of San Francisco.
Larry Paradis is the President and Co-Director of Litigation for Disability Rights Advocates. Mr. Paradis specializes in class action and other high impact disability rights litigation. He has handled many precedent-setting ADA cases in areas such as employment, housing, transportation, education, insurance, and public accommodations. Mr. Paradis was named by California Lawyer Magazine one of California's Lawyers of the Year for his victories in civil rights cases in 2011 and 2003. In 2004, he was voted, along with his co-counsel, Trial Lawyer of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association. Mr. Paradis has been a Ninth Circuit Judicial Council Lawyer Representative from the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, member of a Magistrate Judge Selection Panel, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and court appointed mediator. Mr. Paradis graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was a member of the Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Law Journal. After law school, he worked at Miller, Starr and Regalia for ten years, before leaving to co-found and direct Disability Rights Advocates.
Eugene Alfred Pinover is a partner and Chair of the real estate department of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York. Mr. Pinover specializes in representing domestic and foreign real estate companies and institutional clients in acquisitions, sales, restructuring and sophisticated financings and development projects throughout the United States. His practice also includes representing public real investment trusts, underwriters and investors in equity offerings and debt securitizations.
Chambers USA (2009) ranks Mr. Pinover in the number 1 tier for leading individuals practicing in the area of Corporate/Finance Real Estate, as well as in the number 1 tier for Land.
Mr. Pinover is a member of the Real Estate Advisory Board of Dartmouth College, and an associate member of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE). He is also a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the American Bar Association, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and the New York Advisory Board of Chicago Title Insurance Company. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Steep Rock Association (land trust), Trinity School, New Alternatives for Children and Disability Rights Advocates.
Michael P. Stanley is an attorney, retired, and serves on boards of non-profit organization devoted to improving public education and disability rights. Mr. Stanley was a former partner at a leading international law firm based in San Francisco. He specialized in civil trial practice with principal focus on mass product liability and toxic tort litigation. His experience includes extensive jury trial, law and motion practice, and pretrial discovery throughout the United States. Prior to private practice, Mr. Stanley served as Director of Consumer Fraud at the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, which brought civil and criminal actions to improve health care in nursing homes and board and care facilities, improve substandard low income rental housing, enforce state civil rights acts and predatory lending laws and recover damages and restitution for victims of deceptive advertising and illegal business practices. Mr. Stanley testified before California legislature and regulatory agencies on matters pertaining to consumer finance abuses and banking, insurance and health care reform. Mr. Stanley received his J.D. from Loyola Law School in 1972.
Fernando M. Torres-Gil’s multifaceted career spans the academic, professional, and policy arenas. He is a Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy at UCLA, an Adjunct Professor of Gerontology at USC, and Director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging. He has served as Associate Dean and Acting Dean at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. He has written six books and over l00 publications, including The New Aging: Politics and Change in America (1992) and Lessons from Three Nations, Volumes I and II (2007). His academic contributions have earned him membership in the prestigious Academies of Public Administration, Gerontology and Social Insurance. His research spans important topics of health and long-term care, disability, entitlement reform, and the politics of aging.
Professor Torres-Gil is more than an academic. He has an impressive portfolio of public service and national and international recognition as a leading spokesperson on demographics, aging, and public policy. He earned his first presidential appointment in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the Federal Council on Aging. He was selected as a White House Fellow and served under Joseph Califano, then Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), and continued as a Special Assistant to the subsequent Secretary of HEW, Patricia Harris. He was appointed (with Senate Confirmation) by President Bill Clinton as the first-ever U.S. Assistant Secretary on Aging in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). As the Clinton Administration’s chief advocate on aging, Torres-Gil played a key role in promoting the importance of the issues of aging, long-term care and disability, community services for the elderly, and baby boomer preparation for retirement. He served under HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, managing the Administration on Aging and organizing the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, in addition to serving as a member of the President’s Welfare Reform Working Group.
In 2010 he received his third presidential appointment (with Senate Confirmation) when President Barack Obama appointed him as Vice Chair of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency that reports to the Congress and White House on federal matters related to disability policy. During his public service in Washington, D.C., he also served as Staff Director of the U.S. House Select Committee on Aging under his mentor, Congressman Edward R. Roybal.
At the local level, Torres-Gil has served as the Vice President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission and a member of the Harbor and Taxi Commissions for the city of Los Angeles. He currently serves Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as an appointed member of the Board of Airport Commissioners. At the state level, he was appointed by former Governor Gray Davis to the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Veterans’ Homes and by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a delegate to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging.
He continues to provide important leadership in philanthropy and non-profit organizations as a board member of the AARP Foundation and the California Endowment, and he is a former board member of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California and the Los Angeles Chinatown Service Center.
Dr. Torres-Gil was born and raised in Salinas, California, the son of migrant farm workers. He earned his A.A. in Political Science at Hartnell Community College (1968), a B.A. with honors in Political Science from San Jose State University (1970), and an M.S.W. (1972) and Ph.D. (1976) in Social Policy, Planning and Research from the Heller Graduate School in Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.