Laurie Robinson (2000) directs the Master of Science Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Criminology and the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. She served as assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice, where she headed the Office of Justice Programs from 1993 to 2000. Ms. Robinson has also served as director of the American Bar Association’s Section of Criminal Justice, where she founded the Juvenile Justice Center. She currently sits on the boards of the Police Foundation, the National Center for Victims of Crime, and the Constitution Project.
James K. Bredar, Trustee
James K. Bredar (2007) is a United States magistrate judge in the District of Maryland. He serves as a mediator in the U.S. District Court’s alternative dispute resolution program, is co-chair of the Court’s Criminal Justice Act Committee, and sits on the Court’s Strategic Planning, Bar Liaison, and Security Committees. Judge Bredar is a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction. Previously, he served as the federal public defender in Maryland, as an assistant United States attorney in Colorado, and as a national park ranger. Judge Bredar headed Vera’s London office in 1991 and 1992.
Edward P. Brynn, Trustee
Edward P. Brynn (2006) teaches history and politics at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte and until recently was chair of the World Affairs Council. During a distinguished career in the Foreign Service he was the U.S. Ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ghana and principal deputy in the Bureau of African Affairs.
Karen S. Burstein, Trustee
Karen S. Burstein (1995), a practicing attorney in New York City, served from 1990 to 1994 as a judge of the New York State Family Court. She has served as auditor general of New York City, president of the New York State Civil Service Commission, chair and executive of the State Consumer Protection Board, a member of the Public Service Commission, state senator from Long Island’s ninth district, co-chair of the Governor’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, and chair of the Temporary State Commission on Workers’ Compensation and Disability Benefits.
Zachary W. Carter, Trustee
Zachary W. Carter (1999) joined the New York office of Dorsey & Whitney, a Minneapolis-based law firm, in July 1999 after serving for six years as a United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Previously, he was a federal magistrate, a New York City Court judge, executive assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, a litigation associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
William P. Dickey, Trustee
William P. Dickey (1999) is president of The Dermot Company, Inc., a real estate investment, development, and management company that specializes in multi-family housing. He served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1970; practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore from 1974 to 1986, the last six years as a partner in the corporate/real estate department; and was a managing director of the First Boston Corporation, the New York investment banking firm, from 1986 until 1990. He is also a director of Kilroy Realty Corp., a Los Angeles-based REIT.
Richard G. Dudley, Trustee
Richard G. Dudley, Jr., M.D. (1989) has a private practice in psychiatry that includes a clinical practice, a forensic practice, and a consultation/education practice. He was previously deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Mental Health, and he previously held faculty appointments as associate professor of medicine and director of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at City University of New York Medical School at City College and as adjunct assistant professor of law at New York University School of Law. He is also on the board of Housing Works, Inc.
Dean M. Esserman, Trustee
Dean M. Esserman (2005) is chief of police of the Providence Police Department and one of only a handful of federally appointed police monitors in the nation. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Police Executive Research Forum, a policing think tank. From 1998 to 2001, he led the Stamford, Connecticut, Police Department as its chief; and from 1993 to 1998, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Metro North Police Department in New York as its chief. He was assistant chief of police in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1991 to 1993 and counsel to Chief William Bratton of the New York City Transit Police from 1987 to 1991. He began his career as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York.
Daniel J. Freed, Trustee
Daniel J. Freed (1970) is clinical professor emeritus of law and its administration at Yale Law School. His areas of particular interest are sentencing and criminal justice administration. He is an editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, a publication started at Vera in 1988 shortly after the federal sentencing guidelines took effect.
Saul A. Green, Trustee
Saul A. Green (2006) is senior counsel at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in Detroit. Formerly, Mr. Green was a United States attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 1994 to 2001. He served as Wayne County corporation counsel from 1989 to 1993; chief counsel for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Detroit Field Office from 1976 to 1989; and as an assistant United States attorney from 1973 to 1976. A significant component of his private practice is civil rights cases. Through his work with the Innocence Project, he helped secure the exoneration of Eddie Lloyd, who had served 17 years in prison after having been wrongfully convicted of murder.
Robert H. Henry, Trustee
Robert H. Henry (1999) has served in all three branches of government. Since 1994 he has been a member of the federal judiciary, serving on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Between 1987 and 1992, he was the attorney general of Oklahoma. From 1976 to 1986 he was a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. He has practiced law in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and taught and served as dean at Oklahoma City University School of Law.
Sally T. Hillsman, Trustee
Sally T. Hillsman (2003) is executive officer of the American Sociological Association, a membership association dedicated to advancing sociology as a scientific discipline and profession serving the public good. She was deputy director of the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, from 1996 to 2002. Before that she was vice president for research at the National Center for State Courts and also associate director of the Vera Institute of Justice. A sociologist specializing in crime and justice, she earned her doctoral degree from Columbia University and taught at Queens College of the City University of New York.
Sandra A. Lamb, Trustee
Sandra A. Lamb (2008), through Lamb Advisors, serves as a consultant to nonprofits on strategic alliances and change solutions. She spent the first part of her career as a portfolio manager in the MONY Group and then moved to Lazard Freres, where for 20 years she was responsible for mergers and acquisitions as well as other complex corporate financial advisory assignments. She has served on the board and audit committees of several stock-exchange-listed companies and nonprofit organizations. She currently serves as a trustee and treasurer of the Taproot Foundation, a trustee and vice chair of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a trustee and chair of the audit committee of the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York.
Eric Lane, Trustee
Eric Lane (1990) is the Eric J. Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Public Service at Hofstra University School of Law. He is co-author of two books, Legislative Process and Introduction to Statutory Interpretation and the Legislative Process, with the Honorable Abner J. Mikva. Mr. Lane has served as special counsel to the speaker of the New York City Council, counsel to the New York State Temporary Commission on Constitutional Revision, chair of the New York City Task Force on Charter Implementation, executive director/counsel to the New York City Charter Revision Commission, and counsel to the New York State Senate minority leader. He sits on the board of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.
Susan Powers Lodge, Trustee
Susan Powers Lodge (1998) was the deputy district attorney for programs and planning in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office. Former director of the Community Service Sentencing Project at the Vera Institute of Justice, Ms. Powers has chaired several committees of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In addition, she has published extensively in the field of criminal justice.
Richard J. Mack, Trustee
Richard J. Mack (2006) is a managing partner at the Apollo Real Estate Investment Fund and previously worked at Shearson Lehman Hutton. Today, he serves as a director of ARCap REIT Inc., is the president of the nonprofit HES Community Center, and is on the Joint Distribution Committee’s Central and Eastern European Property Reclamation committee. He was also directly involved in one of New York City’s rare conversions of its former rental units into tenant sponsored co-ops via private funding in an effort to introduce affordable housing into the city's marketplace.
Catie Marshall, Trustee
Catie Marshall (2006) is a senior vice president at Citigroup working in communications. She has served as deputy superintendent for communications and media relations at the New York State Banking Department; an assistant press secretary in New York City Hall; an assistant commissioner in the city’s housing agency; a spokesperson for City Planning, the Economic Development Corporation, and the city’s schools chancellor; and director of internal communications for a global advertising agency.
Joseph F. McDonald, Trustee
Joseph McDonald (1983), senior council and former partner at Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, LLP, is a former director and chairman of Project Renewal, a Vera spin-off; a trustee emeritus of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest; and a director of Education Through Music, Inc.
Theodore A. McKee, Trustee
Theodore A. McKee (2006) has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 1994. Before being appointed to the federal bench he was a state trial judge. During that time, he chaired the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission. He has also served as an assistant United States attorney. In addition, to his judicial duties, he currently serves on several other boards of directors, including the Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple University; the advisory board of City Year, Philadelphia; and as chair of the board of advisors of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Orlando Rodriguez, Trustee
Orlando Rodriguez (2003) is chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham University and former director of Fordham’s Hispanic Research Center. His areas of research interest are the mental health of minority and migrant populations, program evaluation research, and criminal justice processes. He received his B.A. in sociology from City College of New York and his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University.
John F. Savarese, Trustee
John F. Savarese (1995) is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His practice principally relates to securities regulation, compliance, and the defense of regulatory and white-collar criminal investigations. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan and then worked as an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, serving there as chief appellate attorney. He has taught advanced criminal procedure at Harvard Law School.
Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Trustee
Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr. (1978-1981, 1987-present) is senior counsel at Cravath, Swaine and Moore and interim president and senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. He has served as corporation counsel of New York City, chairman of the New York City Charter Revision Commission, and chief counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He currently chairs the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council and is chair of the New York City Campaign Finance Board.
Karen Patton Seymour, Trustee
Karen Patton Seymour (2007) is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Her practice focuses mostly on white-collar criminal defense and internal investigations. She has also served as chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where she oversaw, among others, the investigations into WorldCom, ImClone, and Adelphia.
Burke Marshall, Chair Emeritus
(2002-2003)
Burke Marshall (1966) was Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor Emeritus of Law and George Crawford Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. He served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Robert Kennedy, then as general counsel of IBM before moving on to Yale Law School. Chairman of Vera's board from 1966 to 1986, he served as the first chair of the board of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a Vera spin-off.
Norborne Berkeley, Honorary Trustee
Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Honorary Trustee
Morris E. Lasker, Honorary Trustee
Barbara Margolis, Honorary Trustee
Richard L. Menschel, Honorary Trustee
Michael E. Smith, Honorary Trustee
Christopher E. Stone, Honorary Trustee
Herbert Sturz, Honorary Trustee
Patricia Wald, Honorary Trustee
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