Staff
A dedicated and talented staff. Working for the LAS–ELC brings the rewards of a collegial and supportive workplace, and the satisfaction of providing a high level of client service. Student law clerks and new attorneys supported by fellowships continually bring new energy and ideas to the programs of the LAS–ELC, and their contributions are highly valued.
Attorneys
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- Joan Messing Graff
- President
Joan Graff has been President of the Legal Aid Society–Employment Law Center since 1981. She began her legal career working in the General Counsel’s office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at its headquarters in Washington D.C. Following her move to the Bay Area Ms. Graff joined Equal Rights Advocates as it was being launched and remained there for nearly a decade. The organization was one of the first nonprofit legal organizations in the country dedicated to securing equality for women and it became one of the leading proponents for women’s rights nationally. Ms. Graff has served on a number of boards and advisory committees and in 2006 was awarded the Loren Miller Legal Services Award by the State Bar of California.
Ms. Graff received her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1967 and her B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1964. She is a member of the Bars of California and the District of Columbia.
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- Tamika Butler
- John and Terry Levin Fellow, Fair Play for Girls in Sports
Tamika Butler is the John and Terry Levin Fellow for the Fair Play for Girls in Sports project. She engages in community education, negotiations, litigation and policy work on behalf of female youth—primarily in low-income communities—who have not been afforded equal athletic opportunities under Title IX. Tamika joined the LAS–ELC in 2009 as a Skadden Fellow in the Racial Equality Program expanding employment rights outreach to members of the African-American communities of the Bay Area. She received her J.D. in 2009 from Stanford Law School, and her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Sociology with a specialization in Criminal Justice from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in 2006.
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- Claudia Center
- Senior Staff Attorney | Director, Disability Rights Program
Claudia Center has been with the LAS–ELC since 1995. Ms. Center litigates cases that secure workplace accommodations and increase protections for workers with disabilities, and is actively involved in appellate work. She played a key role in the passage of an amendment to the FEHA that succeeded in broadening protections for persons with disabilities in employment and housing. In Fall 2001, Ms. Center argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, a case that clarified in a positive manner the scope of “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employees. In 1997, she started the LIBRA Project, a special initiative to advance the employment rights of persons with mental health conditions. Prior to coming to the LAS–ELC, Ms. Center was a staff attorney at the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) in Washington, D.C. and a recipient of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She obtained her B.A. in Government and African Studies from Wesleyan University in 1987 and her J.D. from Boalt Hall at the University of California in 1992.
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- Fernando Flores
- Staff Attorney | Director, WageHELP Program
Fernando Flores is a Staff Attorney in the Wage and Hour Litigation Program. Fernando provides court representation for low-income workers whose rights to lawful wages and time off have been violated. Fernando comes to the Society from Centro Legal De La Raza where he was a Shartsis Friese Fellow. In addition to supervising employment and housing clinics, he represented tenants at administrative Rent Board hearings, mediated uninhabitable living condition cases, and litigated on behalf of tenants facing unlawful detainer proceedings. Prior to Centro Legal, Fernando was a Staff Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles where he performed the same duties he achieves with LAS–ELC: litigating wage and hour issues and unemployment appeals, community education, and training counselors to represent clients in administrative proceedings. He received his J.D. from the University of California, Davis School of Law in 2007 and his B.A. in Sociology and Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley.
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- Michael T. Gaitley
- Senior Staff Attorney | Director, Community Legal Services
Mike Gaitley is a Senior Staff Attorney at the LAS–ELC. He manages the LAS–ELC’s Community Legal Services Program, where his primary responsibility is supervision of the LAS–ELC’s Workers’ Rights Clinics held in-person throughout the Bay Area, and statewide by telephone. Prior to becoming a Staff Attorney, Mr. Gaitley was a sole-practitioner focusing on employment-related litigation and related services. Mr. Gaitley also worked as a union official and attorney with Pan Am’s flight attendant union. Mr. Gaitley is a 1984 graduate of Pace University Law School and a 1979 graduate of the University of Michigan. Mr. Gaitley currently serves as an adjunct professor at University of California - Hastings College of the Law.
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- Gina Gemello
- Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow
Gina Gemello is an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow in the Disability Program. She supervises the Workers’ Rights Disability Clinic at the Ed Roberts Campus disability community center in Berkeley. Gina organizes public workshops and community outreach on topics of interest to workers with disabilities. She received her J.D. in 2011 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her B.A. in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Gina has extensive experience with the Bay Area non-profit legal community having worked at the East Bay Community Law Center, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, National Indian Justice Center, and UC Hastings Civil Justice Clinic among others.
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- Christopher Ho
- Senior Staff Attorney | Director, National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program
Christopher Ho, Director of the National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program, has been with LAS–ELC since 1987, first as its Félix Velarde-Muñoz Graduate Intern and then, upon his return in 1990, as a staff attorney. His primary focus has been on litigation against practices that disproportionately impact language minorities, undocumented workers, and recent immigrants. Mr. Ho has also worked on cases in the areas of race and sexual orientation discrimination, wage and hour rights and workplace privacy, and served as lead class counsel in Tracy v. Yellow Cab, which successfully enjoined unlawful employment practices in the San Francisco taxi industry affecting thousands of drivers. He was the recipient of a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award in 2004 for his work on Rivera v. Nibco, Inc. and Singh v. Jutla, two cases that reaffirmed the right of undocumented immigrants to seek legal redress for workplace discrimination and retaliation. He also was given the Joe Morozumi Award for Exceptional Legal Advocacy in 2006 by the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, and Stanford Law School’s Alumni Public Service Award in 2007. Mr. Ho received his B.A. in political science from Yale in 1977, an A.M. in government from Harvard in 1980, and his J.D. from Stanford in 1987. In 2001, he was a Windcall Resident Fellow in Belgrade, Montana.
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- Denise M. Hulett
- Director of Litigation
Denise Hulett is the Litigation Director and an attorney in the Racial Equality Program. Prior to joining the LAS–ELC in 2006, she was Co-Director of the Employment Justice Research Center (EJRC) in San Francisco, where she designed and directed a study aimed at developing national and local strategies for opening the fire service to women and people of color. Formerly the National Redistricting Director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), she directed MALDEF’s outreach, legislative advocacy, and litigation in connection with state and local redistricting in several states, including California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, and New Mexico. Her MALDEF cases were concentrated primarily in the areas of voting rights, employment discrimination, and immigrant rights, including Ruiz v. Santa Maria, a voting rights challenge to at-large city council elections in Santa Maria, California, International Molders’ Union v. INS, challenging INS workplace raids, and Davis v. City and County of San Francisco, an employment discrimination challenge to hiring and promotional practices in the San Francisco Fire Department. Denise’s 25 year civil rights legal career followed 10 years of elementary school teaching, first in New Orleans, and later in a bilingual classroom in Salinas, California.
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- Jinny Kim
- Senior Staff Attorney
Jinny Kim is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Disability Rights Program at the LAS–ELC. Jinny joined the LAS–ELC in 1999 as the Félix Velarde-Muñoz Fellow and litigated race, disability, national origin and gender cases. Thereafter, she was a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow where she served as Labor Counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy on the Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Prior to returning to LAS–ELC in 2008 as a Staff Attorney, Jinny held positions at the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, as well as Schneider, Wallace, Cottrell, Brayton and Konecky, and Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian. Jinny received her J.D. in 1999 from the University of California, Davis and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995.
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- Elizabeth Kristen
- Senior Staff Attorney | Director, Gender Equity Program
Elizabeth Kristen is the Director of the Gender Equity Program and a Senior Staff Attorney at the LAS–ELC. She represents workers in employment discrimination cases including cases involving discrimination on the basis of gender, pregnancy, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, and race as well as cases in which employers have violated family and medical leave laws. She also engages in community education, negotiations, litigation and policy work on behalf of female students who have not been afforded equal athletic opportunities under Title IX. Prior to beginning her work at LAS–ELC in 2002 as a Skadden Fellow, she clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. She graduated from Berkeley Law in 2001 where she was selected for the Order of the Coif. She also served as an Editor for the California Law Review. Ms. Kristen is a member of the American Association of University Women, the National Employment Lawyers Association and the California Employment Lawyers Association and a past Board member of the Pride Law Fund. Ms. Kristen currently serves as a lecturer at Berkeley Law School.
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- Rachael Langston
- Staff Attorney
Rachael Langston is a Staff Attorney in the Gender Equity and Disability Rights Programs. Rachael joined the LAS–ELC in 2008. She advises and represents workers with disabilities, with a primary focus on disability discrimination and failure to accommodate in the workplace. Rachael also provides community education regarding the rights of employees with disabilities, and participates in legislative advocacy to expand the rights of workers who have familial care giving responsibilities. She received her J.D. in 2008 from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. from Texas Tech University in 2005.
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- William C. McNeill. III
- Managing Attorney | Director, Racial Equality Program
Bill McNeill is the Managing Attorney and Director of the Racial Equality Program at the LAS–ELC. Bill has been with the LAS–ELC since 1988 and served as the Managing Attorney since 1998. He has been involved in civil rights issues for more than 30 years, and has litigated a number of cases designed to advance the rights of minorities, including Davis v. City and County of San Francisco, which resulted in the integration of the fire department, increased opportunity for people of color in hiring and promotions, and the appointment of the first black chief in the City’s history. Bill began his legal career in 1971 as a public defender with the Roxbury Defenders Committee in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He then worked as an attorney with the Atlanta Regional Litigation Center for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as the director of the Title VII Project at the San Francisco Office of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and as regional counsel for California Rural Legal Assistance. He has received two honors from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. for his litigation work combating employment discrimination. Bill received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1971 and his A.B. in Economics from Oberlin College in 1965. He is a member of the California, Georgia, and Massachusetts Bars.
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- Charlotte Noss
- Skadden Fellow
Charlotte Noss has joined LAS–ELC as a Skadden Fellow, working in the Wage and Hour Program and the National Origin Project. Working closely with other community organizations, Charlotte will focus on defending the employment rights of low-wage immigrant workers. She will engage in outreach, education, advocacy and litigation to expand and implement legal strategies to combat wage theft faced by Bay Area workers. Charlotte received her J.D. in 2010 from Northeastern University School of Law, after spending five years community and union organizing in Boston. She obtained her B.S. in Environmental Forest Biology from the State University of New York–College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 2002.
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- Araceli Martínez-Olguín
- Staff Attorney
Araceli Martínez-Olguín is a Staff Attorney in the National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program. She works to vindicate and expand the workplace rights of recent immigrants to the United States—particularly those who face exploitation on account of their immigrant status, or who have been unfairly denied equal employment opportunities because of their linguistic characteristics. Prior to joining LAS–ELC in 2010, Araceli was a Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Women’s Rights Project, where she engaged in advocacy on behalf of immigrant women workers. She also served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge David Briones. Araceli received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Law School (Boalt Hall) in 2004. Araceli earned her undergraduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1999. She is a member of the Bars of California and New York, and served as a lecturer at Berkeley Law (Spring 2012: Spanish for Lawyers). Before law school, Araceli taught bilingual kindergarten through Teach for America in Oakland, California. She is the 2010 recipient of the Hon. Thelton E. Henderson Social Justice Prize.
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- Julia Parish
- Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow
Julia Parish is an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow with the Work and Family and SURVIVE Projects. Julia assists with the project helplines and provides legal advice, know-your-rights workshops, and direct legal services for workers struggling with family and medical crises. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2011 as well as her B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from the university. She also has a M.S. in Teaching from Pace University. Julia was previously a legal intern with the Gender Equity Program at LAS–ELC, and has training in family legal issues from her legal internship at East Bay Community Law Center. Prior to Law School, Julia was a High School Spanish teacher and sports coach.
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- Sharon Terman
- Senior Staff Attorney
Sharon Terman is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Gender Equity Program of The LAS–ELC. She represents workers with family and medical leave claims as well as claims of pregnancy, gender, and disability discrimination. She also provides legal advice to low-income workers, engages in community education, and participates in legislative advocacy to expand workers’ rights. Sharon received her B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1998 and her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2004. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Paez of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2004-2005. She joined LAS–ELC as a Skadden Fellow in 2005 and became a Staff Attorney in 2007.
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- Carole Vigne
- Staff Attorney
Carole Vigne is a Staff Attorney in the Community Legal Services Program. She provides information, advice, and representation to workers on their employment rights, with a focus on wage and hour and unemployment insurance issues. Carole also trains and supervises legal advocates to represent clients at administrative wage claim hearings and unemployment insurance appeals and engages in community education. Carole was previously a Skadden Fellow with LAS–ELC’s National Origin, Immigration, and Language Rights Program, working to expand the rights of immigrant workers and serving San Francisco’s immigrant, limited-English-proficient, Latino workers through a workers’ rights clinic. She also litigated employment law cases at Rukin, Hyland, Doria & Tindall, LLP, and previously worked at the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. Carole received her B.A. from Brown University in 2001 and her J.D. from University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2007.
Special Counsel
- Robert E. Borton
- Professor Joseph R. Grodin
- Pamela S. Karlan
- Ruth Silver Taube
Program Services
- Mary Broughton
- Paralegal
- Djuna Gray
- Paralegal
- Pamela Mitchell
- Litigation Assistant
- Jerome Nakagawa
- Litigation Assistant
- King Szeto
- Language Access Coordinator
- Florencia Valle-Miller
- Coordinator, Community Legal Services
External Relations and Development
- Steve Heimerle
- Manager, External Relations
- Christopher Herrera
- Director of External Relations
- Eunhee Kim
- External Relations Associate | Database Specialist
- Megan Segle
- Development Manager, Grants
- Andrea Spacht
- External Relations Associate
Administration
- Howard Chen
- Director of Human Resources
- Ana E. Flores
- Receptionist
- Thomas V. Keane, Jr.
- Finance Manager
- Scott Neilson
- Network Administrator
- Christine Todd
- Chief Operating Officer