Events

Professor Stephanie Barclay is an Associate Professor of Law at BYU Law School, where she researches and writes about the role our different democratic institutions play in protecting minority rights, particularly at the intersection of free speech and religious exercise issues. Professor Barclay’s academic writing has appeared in journals such as the Boston College Law Review, William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. Her work has also been featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg BNA, Deseret News, The Hill, and Law 360. Professor Barclay teaches First Amendment and Family Law, and she has consulted on litigation issues involving faith-based adoption agencies. Professor Barclay is a member of the Executive Committee for the AALS Law and Religion Section.

Dan Berger is a partner at the law firm of Curran, Berger & Kludt in Northampton, MA. He developed his interest in immigration in college, where he studied immigration history and taught English to adult refugees.  Dan is a graduate of Harvard College and Cornell Law School.  Dan is also a founding member of the US Alliance of International Entrepreneurs (usaie.org), an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, the Regulatory Practice Coordinator for the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA), and a member of the USCIS Headquarters liaison committee for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (aila.org). Dan has also maintained an active presence in the field of immigration law through numerous writings.  He has been editor for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) annual conference handbook since 2000, and edited Immigration Options for Academics and Researchers, the International Adoption Sourcebook, and the Diplomatic Visa Guide. He wrote an Issue Brief for the American Council on Education (ACE) after the 2016 election, and was a co-author on a “Note” on immigration in 2017 for the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA).

Dr. Cassie Statuto Bevan worked in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty years. During her tenure she worked as a professional staffer and later staff director on the Ways and Means Committee and the International Relations Committee. Dr. Statuto Bevan also worked in the leadership of the House as a Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Majority Whip and later held the same position for the U.S. Majority Leader. During her tenure on Capitol Hill, Dr. Statuto Bevan was a principal staffer on many domestic and international bills that later became public laws including: the Inter-Enthic Placement Act of 1996; the Adoption Tax Credit of 1996; the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997; the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999; the Inter-Country Adoption Act of 2000; the District of Columbia Family Court Act of 2001 and the Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act of 2006.  Dr. Statuto Bevan has testified numerous times on the federal and state levels. She has was appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare and most recently the U.S. Commission to Eliminate Child Fatalities (where she wrote the Dissenting Opinion). Dr. Statuto Bevan has received numerous awards for her work and has published, most recently, in the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 24.

Kathryn Webb Bradley is a professor of the practice of law, the director of Legal Ethics, and the administrator for the Capstone Project at Duke Law School. She teaches in the areas of legal ethics and family law. Bradley received her B.A., magna cum laude, with Honors in Latin, and became a member of Phi Beta Kappa upon graduating from Wake Forest University in 1979. She earned her J.D. degree in 1988 from the University of Maryland School of Law, where she ranked first in her class and was admitted to membership in the Order of the Coif. She then served as a law clerk to Judge Frederic N. Smalkin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and Justice Byron R. White of the United States Supreme Court. She joined the firm of Hogan & Hartson in 1991, was made partner in 1998, and became of counsel in 2000. Bradley worked in the firm’s Washington, Baltimore, and Denver offices as a member of the Litigation Department. Her areas of practice, at trial and appellate levels, included federal and state constitutional law, higher education law, health care fraud and abuse, and general commercial law. Bradley taught Legal Research and Writing at the University of Virginia from 2000 until 2005 when she joined the Duke Law faculty. She previously had been an adjunct instructor of Legal Writing, Constitutional Law, and Federal Jurisdiction at the University of Maryland School of Law. Between college and law school, she was a secondary school teacher in Virginia Beach, Va., and Winston-Salem, N.C. Bradley holds membership in the American Bar Association and the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference. She is admitted to practice in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, the District of Columbia, and various federal courts.

Margaret F. Brinig is the quintessential interdisciplinarian, melding her expertise with law and social science in empirical studies of families, social capital, and social welfare legislation.  Brinig is best known for her expertise in family law. She sits on the executive council of the International Society of Family Law, and recently published Family, Law, and Community: Supporting the Covenant (University of Chicago Press, 2010), which offers a distinctive study of legal reform from the perspective of family dynamics and social policy. The book examines a range of subjects of current legal interest including cohabitation, custody, grandparent visitation, and domestic violence. She concludes that conventional legal systems and the social programs they engender ignore social capital: the trust and support given to families by a community. Currently, Brinig is collaborating with another colleague, Dan Kelly, on the Law, Economics, and Business seminar. The seminar features speakers from within Notre Dame's law school, economics department, business school, and other departments, as well as speakers from other law schools and universities. Law students and graduate students from other departments have the opportunity to read, discuss, and comment upon seminal scholarship by leading academics while earning course credit for participating in the seminar.  At the University of Notre Dame, Brinig is a Fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at Notre Dame, and works closely with the Institute's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Program. She continues to conduct groundbreaking research with colleague Nicole Garnett on the negative impact of Catholic K-12 school closures on poor neighborhoods.  Brinig has been honored for her work at a Notre Dame football game and won the Distinguished Professor Award at George Mason University. She is a member of the American Law Institute.

Prudence Beidler Carr, Esq. is the Director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law in Washington DC, where she manages a team of attorneys and core staff who work on children’s law projects throughout the country. Prudence provides substantive expertise on Center projects related to federal legislation, child welfare and immigration, and legal representation. Prudence joined the ABA Center in July 2016 and brings a background in government, nonprofit management, and children’s advocacy to her role. Over the last twenty years, Prudence has worked on numerous projects in child welfare, early care and education, and afterschool program development both domestically and internationally. Immediately before joining the ABA Center, Prudence lived in Mexico City where she partnered with JUCONI, a Mexican organization that helps street-living youth reintegrate with their families. Previously, Prudence worked in the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Homeland Security, where she managed class action, appellate and Supreme Court litigation and advised senior leaders on the legal effects of immigration and national security policies. Prudence also served as the office's Deputy Managing Counsel, in which she helped manage a $30 Million budget for a 150-person staff and conducted strategic planning across all DHS legal offices, encompassing approximately 1,800 attorneys. Prudence served as a law clerk for District Judge Paul S. Diamond in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She has served on several public interest and education boards, including the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in California and the Law Board at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Prudence has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a JD from Northwestern.

Lisa Tucker Cauley, MSW has dedicated her career to enriching and advancing child welfare in North Carolina. She currently serves as Child Welfare Director with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Social Services. Her purview encapsulates all state child welfare services and programs, such as prevention of child abuse and neglect, child protection, foster care, adoption, building the capacity of parents and families, and creating opportunities for young people aging out of the foster care system. In addition, Lisa is a member of the legislatively-appointed Social Services Working Group tasked with regional design of North Carolina’s social services programs. Previously Lisa served as Child Welfare Division Director and Deputy Director of Child Welfare Operations for Wake County Department of Human Services. Under her leadership Wake County implemented a practice model, established a continuous quality improvement unit, decreased staff-to-supervisor ratios and maximized child welfare revenues. Lisa’s vast practical, theoretical, and teaching experience inspires her ideas on policy and practice advancement. Lisa began her career with Wake County in 1988 and developed one of the state’s first independent living programs for youth in foster care. Since then, she has directly supervised every facet of public child welfare which includes child protective services, foster care and foster home licensure, adoptions, and community development services. Her experience in the private sector includes group home management at Crossnore School, Inc. She has worked as a School Social Worker with the Wake County Public School System and served on the Governor’s Force on Mental Health and Substance Use. Additionally, she was a clinical faculty member of UNC School of Social Work and an adjunct social work instructor with North Carolina State University. Her areas of expertise in teaching included policy, practice, and programming for children and families. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Social Work degree from NC State University and Master of Social Work degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native North Carolinian, Lisa is the biological child of foster parents and is married to a career law enforcement officer who retired after serving as a chief of police in eastern North Carolina. Her greatest accomplishment is successfully parenting their two children, Leah Frances and Avery, while also meeting the demands of two crisis-oriented careers.

Megan Finno-Velasquez Dr. Finno-Velasquez received her PhD in Social Work from University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. Currently, Dr. Finno-Velasquez is an associate professor at New Mexico State University and is the Director of The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare. This organization is a national peer membership organization that fosters cross-sector collaboration by linking and supporting professionals across the child welfare, immigration and legal fields. The center has focused on building capacity of the U.S. child welfare system to respond to the unique needs of immigrant families and children through research, resource development and dissemination, training and technical assistance, and national leadership by sponsoring cross-sector conferences, workgroups and advocacy initiatives.  Dr. Finno-Velasquez's research interests include children and families, child welfare and immigration policy, maltreatment prevention in Latino immigrant communities, cultural competence in child welfare services. She received her MSW from Highlands University in Las Vegas, NV and her Bachelors of Sciences in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Richard J. Gelles holds The Joanne and Raymond Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and is the Managing Faculty Director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice and Research. He is the author or coauthor of 26 books and more than 200 articles and chapters on family violence.  His latest books Intimate Violence and Abuse in Families 4/E (2017, Oxford University Press) and Out of Harm’s Way: Creating an Effective Child Welfare System (2017 Oxford University Press). Gelles received his A.B. degree from Bates College (1968), an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Rochester (1971), and a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire (1973).  He received the American Sociological Association, Section on Undergraduate Education, and “Outstanding Contributions to Teaching Award" in 1979. In 1999 Gelles received the “Award for Career Achievement in Research” from the American Professional Science on the Abuse of Children. Gelles has presented innumerable lectures to policy-making groups and media groups, including THE TODAY SHOW, CBS MORNING NEWS, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW, DATELINE, and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Presently, Gelles lives in Philadelphia with his wife Judy, a photographer.  His son Jason graduated Harvard University in 1996 and is the Head Writer for the Ellen DeGeneres Show. His son David graduated Tufts University in 1999 and is the Executive Producer for Election Coverage at CNN.

DeLeith Gossett clerked for four federal judges before joining Texas Tech University School of Law. She has also taught International & Comparative Family Law Vytautas Magnus University School of Law in Kaunas, Lithuania, and at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico. She writes in the areas of social justice and child welfare, focusing on international and domestic systems of adoption and foster care and frequently presents her scholarship at leading universities.

Johanna Greeson, PhD, MSS. MLSP, is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. She is passionate about reforming the child welfare system, using research to build better futures for youth who age out of foster care, and realizing the power of connections to caring adults for all vulnerable youth. Her research agenda is resiliency-focused and based in the strengths and virtues that enable foster youth to not only survive but thrive. Dr. Greeson’s published work includes scholarly articles on natural mentoring, evidence-based practices for older youth in foster care, including independent living programming, residential group care, and intensive in-home therapy, low-income homeownership, child/adolescent traumatic stress, and domestic minor sex trafficking. Her work has been cited over 1,000 times in the scientific, peer-reviewed literature. She is the developer of Caring Adults ‘R’ Everywhere (C.A.R.E.), a novel, trauma-informed natural mentoring intervention for older youth in foster care, intended to solve the aging out dilemma. Dr. Greeson received her PhD in social work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009 and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University with the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress in 2012. She joined the faculty of the School of Social Policy & Practice at Penn in 2012.

Seth A. Grob graduated cum laude from Duke University in 1987. Seth received his law degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1991. He also studied and received a General Course of Study Degree from the London School of Economics. Seth is one of the principal shareholders of Grob & Eirich, LLC, which was established in 2000.  The firm's practice is limited to building families through adoption, assisted reproduction, immigration, guardianship, and child welfare cases. Seth represents prospective adoptive parents, foster parents and birth parents and is outside legal counsel for eight Colorado domestic and international adoption agencies.  Seth's practice includes infant and toddler adoptions, designated adoptions, interstate adoptions, stepparent adoptions, same sex adoptions, second parent adoptions, relative adoptions, disrupted adoptions, foster-parent adoptions, international adoptions and adoption subsidies. Seth also represents intended parents, egg donors, surrogates and gestational carriers in assisted reproductive technology cases. Seth has handled more than 2,500 adoption related matters and hundreds of medical assisted reproductive technology cases.  Seth has published extensively about adoption and the rights of children and foster parents.  Seth actively participates on a national and state level though his association and membership with the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, the Colorado Bar, the Juvenile Law Forum of the Colorado Bar, and the Family Law Section of the Colorado Bar.  Seth has received national and state recognition for his service on behalf of children and adoptive families. In 2008, the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys awarded Seth the "Amy M. Silberberg Award" in recognition of his unique contributions to the adoption of special needs children.  In 2006, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute awarded Seth an Angel in Adoption.  In 2006, the 1st Judicial Bar Association, State of Colorado, awarded Seth the Linda T. Palmieri Annual Award for Outstanding Service to Children. In 1996, the National Association of Counsel for Children awarded Seth the Outstanding Legal Advocacy Award for his legal work on behalf of children.

Andrew Guernsey is a Legislative Assistant for Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, assisting him in his role as co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption on legislative initiatives involving foster care and intercountry/domestic adoption. Andrew’s legislative portfolio also includes values, low-income housing, and postal issues. Before working for Senator Blunt, Andrew worked as a Senior Legislative Assistant at the Family Research Council, handling legislative issues related to life, health care, bioethics, and human dignity. Andrew received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in Political Science and Classics, and will be completing a M.A. in Government at Johns Hopkins University this December.

Ryan Hanlon, PhD is Vice President at National Council For Adoption (NCFA). Dr. Hanlon oversees NCFA’s educational projects, research initiatives, serves as a liaison to NCFA’s child welfare constituency, and is engaged in NCFA’s public policy positions, financial operations, and strategic vision. He is the co-editor of NCFA’s monthly Adoption Advocate. Additionally, Dr. Hanlon is an adjunct instructor for graduate students in the social work program at The Catholic University of America (CUA). Prior to joining NCFA, Dr. Hanlon worked for over thirteen years as an adoption professional, where he most recently served as the Executive Director of a Hague-accredited agency that provided domestic and intercountry adoption services. Dr. Hanlon has experience serving as a foster care caseworker as well as with child protective services. In the field of adoption, Dr. Hanlon has been a speaker at national conferences, and has worked on accreditation issues as well as state licensing matters. He lives in northern Virginia with his wife and their four children.

Dr. April Harris-Britt is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Durham since 2003. She received her doctorate from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to providing child, adolescent, adult, and family therapy, Dr. Harris-Britt conducts comprehensive psychological evaluations, forensic evaluations, comprehensive child custody evaluations, civil guardian ad litem evaluations, and parental competency evaluations. Specific areas of expertise include trauma and violence, adoption and attachment, medically fragile children, divorce transitions, ADHD and learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, and multicultural issues. Dr. Harris-Britt utilizes a systems approach to wellness that incorporates developmental, psychological, and social strengths in assessment and treatment. She is trained in many evidence-based models, including Trauma-focused CBT, Motivational Interviewing, and EMDR. Dr. Harris-Britt is often contacted by families, attorneys, and the courts to provide intensive intervention services for families engaged in high-conflict custody disputes, including co-parenting and reunification therapy. She provides services as a Parent Coordinator. Dr. Harris-Britt is licensed in the states of NC and VA. She maintains a faculty appointment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Fielding Graduate University, where she is actively engaged in teaching and research. Some of her work has been featured on CNN, in Newsweek, on local television and radio news programs, and in the New York Times Bestseller, NurtureShock. She is currently a member of the Board for the Center for Cooperative Parenting and the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interests (BAPPI) for the American Psychological Association (APA).

Sharon Hirsch is the president and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina. Hirsch previously served as executive director of Donate Life North Carolina. She has more than 20 years’ experience at nonprofit and government organizations.

Joan Hollinger is the John & Elizabeth Boalt Lecturer-in-Residence, Emerita, at the University of California, Berkeley Law School and an expert on adoption, parentage, and child welfare law and policy. She is the editor and principal author of Adoption Law and Practice 3 vols. (Lexis\Matthew Bender Co. 1988-2018), co-editor of Families By Law: An Adoption Reader (NYU Press, 2004), and the author of numerous articles and conference

papers, including Interstate Jurisdiction and Choice of Law Issues in Adoption and Other Parentage Proceedings (PLI 2010). She was the Reporter for the Uniform Adoption Act (1990s), helped draft the recent revisions to the Uniform Parentage Act, and has long been at the forefront of efforts to improve the implementation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and the U.S. Intercountry Adoption Act. Professor Hollinger was amicus curiae on behalf of children in a number of high-profile adoption, assisted reproduction, and interstate parentage cases in state and federal appeals courts that have invalidated bans on adoption by gays or lesbians; expanded legal protections for adoptive, presumptive, intentional and functional/psychological parents; and clarified that all states must accord full faith and credit to adoption decrees (V.L. v E.L., US 2016). She was amicus for the child in the contentious ICWA case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (US 2013) and was a primary author of the Family Law amicus briefs in the successful Supreme Court challenges to the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (Windsor, US 2013), California’s Proposition 8 (Hollingsworth, US 2013), and all state laws that banned marriage by same-sex couples (Obergefell, US 2015).

Evette Horton, Ph.D., NCC, LPCS, RPT-S, is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine. She is the Director of Child Clinical Services at the UNC Horizons program, a substance abuse treatment program for pregnant or parenting women with substance use disorders and their children. She’s currently President-Elect for the Association for Child and Adolescent Counseling (ACAC). She serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Child and Adolescent Counseling. She is also a founding board member of the North Carolina Infant Mental Health Association (NCIMHA).

Jayne Huckerby joined the Duke Law faculty in 2013 as an associate clinical professor of law and inaugural director of the Duke International Human Rights Clinic.  Prior to joining Duke, she most recently served as a human rights adviser to UN Women – the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – on women and conflict prevention, conflict, and post-conflict; gender equality and constitutional reform in post-Arab Spring countries; and the use of gender and human rights indicators in national security policy frameworks.  A native of Sydney, Australia, Huckerby received her LLB from the University of Sydney in 2002, with first class honors.  She attended New York University School of Law as a Vanderbilt Scholar, focusing her LLM studies on human rights and international law.  Huckerby was awarded the David H. Moses Memorial prize on graduating first in her LLM class.  She was also graduate editor on the Journal of International Law and Politics, and an International Law and Human Rights Fellow at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.  After serving as a human rights officer with the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva, Huckerby joined the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law in 2005, serving as its research director from 2006 to 2011 and also teaching in NYU’s International Human Rights Clinic and Global Justice Clinic for two and a half years.  She has also worked at the law firm Baker & McKenzie in Chicago, Sydney, and London.  Huckerby has undertaken human rights research and advocacy in the areas of gender and human rights, constitution-making, national security, human trafficking, transitional justice, and human rights in U.S. foreign policy.  She has led multiple fieldwork investigations, provided capacity-building to civil society and governments in five regions, and frequently served as a human rights law expert to international governmental organizations and NGOs, including the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.  She also has extensive domestic, regional (Africa, Americas, Europe) and international litigation and advocacy experience.  She has written and co-authored numerous articles, book chapters, and human rights reports, and is most recently the editor, with Margaret L. Satterthwaite, of Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Perspectives (Routledge 2012).

Sean Hughes is the Managing Partner and Director of Government Relations. He has more than 18 years of experience working on a broad range of public policy issues with a particular focus on children and youth. As a Congressional staffer, he organized investigative hearings on a range of child welfare issues and helped draft and pass the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. Following his decade on Capitol Hill, Sean served as Director of Congressional Affairs at the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) for several years. As a consultant, he now works with a range of nonprofit advocacy and youth development organizations, direct service providers, and philanthropic foundations across the country. to increase their effectiveness and enhance their leadership on children's policy issues. Sean possesses significant expertise in county, state and federal legislative, budgeting and regulatory processes.

Dr. Diane B. Kunz, Esq. is Executive Director of the Center for Adoption Policy, a 501 (c) 3 corporation that has become a pre-eminent legal and policy institute engaged in adoption issues. The Center for Adoption Policy was honored in 2008 by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute as an Angel in Adoption. Dr. Kunz has consulted with government agencies such as the Department of State, the Centers for Disease Control and USCIS and has been actively involved in helping deal with issues pertaining to the Haitian children who came to the United States under the humanitarian parole program. From 1976 to 1983 Dr. Kunz practiced corporate law with the firms of White & Case and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (Cornell University, J.D. 1976). She left the practice of law and studied diplomatic and economic history at Oxford University (M. Litt. 1986) and Yale University (Ph.D, 1989). From 1988 until 1998 she was Assistant, then Associate Professor of History at Yale University. While at Yale she wrote extensively on twentieth century history, including the prize-winning book, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis and Butter and Guns: The Economic Diplomacy of the Cold War. From 1998-2001 she taught history and international relations at Columbia University. In 2001 she and Ann Reese founded the Center for Adoption Policy. Dr. Kunz is a member of the New York bar. She is an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys. She is also the mother of eight children, four of whom were born in China through the non-special needs and waiting children programs.

LaTina Marsh earned her Bachelors in English and Family Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park and her Master's of Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. While working on her master's, she completed a two-year assignment with Prince George's County Department of Social Services in the foster care unit.  She also worked as a case manager with the Choice Program, a non-profit agency whose mission is to "strengthen the community through innovative, family-focused strategies that connect youth and their families to opportunities for positive choices." LaTina currently works with the Department of State's, Office of Children's Issues, Adoption Division. Since joining the Department, LaTina's primary focus has been on outgoing intercountry adoptions from the United States. While promoting the Department's goal to make intercounty adoption a viable option for all children in need of permanency, she is particularly interested in finding forever families abroad for children in the U.S. foster care system.  When she is not working, she enjoys traveling and spending quality time with her husband and two sons. 

Douglas NeJaime is Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where he teaches in the areas of family law, legal ethics, law and sexuality, and constitutional law. In Fall 2016, he was the Martin R. Flug Visiting Professor of Law at Yale. Before joining the Yale faculty in 2017, NeJaime was Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, where he served as Faculty Director of the Williams Institute, a research institute on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. He has also served on the faculties at UC Irvine School of Law and Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and was Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in Spring 2017. NeJaime is the co-author of Cases and Materials on Sexuality, Gender Identity, and the Law (with Carlos Ball, Jane Schacter, and William Rubenstein).  His recent scholarship includes “The Nature of Parenthood,” 126 Yale Law Journal 2260 (2017); “Marriage Equality and the New Parenthood,” 129 Harvard Law Review 1185 (2016); “Conscience Wars: Complicity-Based Conscience Claims in Religion and Politics,” 124 Yale Law Journal 2516 (2015), with Reva Siegel; and “Before Marriage: The Unexplored History of Nonmarital Recognition and Its Relationship to Marriage,” 102 California Law Review 87 (2014). NeJaime has twice received the Dukeminier Award, which recognizes the best sexual orientation legal scholarship published in the previous year, and has also been the recipient of UCI Law’s Professor of the Year Award and Loyola Law School’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Ann N. Reese is a co-founder and executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy (CAP). Prior to CAP's formation in 2001, Ann spent over 25 years in a career in finance. Formerly the Chief Financial Officer of ITT, she also worked at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Mobil Oil, Union Carbide, and Bankers Trust. She has an MBA from New York University (1982) and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (1974). Ann is a director of Genesee & Wyoming, Sears Holdings and Xerox. She is a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, chairs the Board of Overseers of the School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2) at Penn, and is a member of the Trustees Council of Penn Women. Ann also serves as a Trustee of Rye Country Day School.

Angie Schwartz, Esq. is Policy Director at the Alliance for Children’s Rights, where she works to improve the well-being of children living in poverty and those placed in foster care or at-risk of dependency. Angie has been instrumental in shaping California’s child welfare system, spearheading key reforms including the extension of foster care to age 21; revamping foster care to be fully inclusive of kinship families; overhauling the state's foster care rate system to be based on a child's needs; and improving access to disability benefits for young people in foster care.  She is a trusted advisor to state and local agencies on state and federal funding strategies, a leader on thoughtful implementation of Continuum of Care reform laws, and a leading voice in advocating for relative caregivers in state and federal child welfare reform. Angie has served as lead and co-counsel in impact cases aimed at securing appropriate benefits and supports for vulnerable children and families.  She is the author of many articles exploring the intersection of child welfare, poverty, and safety net programs.  Angie graduated Magna Cum Laude from American University, and earned a J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School. 

Jane Wettach is a clinical professor, directs the Children’s Law Clinic, and teaches Education Law at Duke Law School.  She is a frequent speaker on special education law, the “school-to-prison pipeline,” and other matters related to educational rights of children. She was honored by the North Carolina Justice Center in 2010 with its “Defender of Justice Award” in the area of litigation. Professor Wettach joined the Duke Law faculty in 1994 after practicing poverty law for 13 years with legal aid offices in Raleigh and Winston-Salem, N.C., developing particular expertise in the law of government benefits.  She has argued cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and the North Carolina Supreme Court, as well as other appellate courts.  She was lead counsel in the appellate aspects of King v. Beaufort County Board of Education, which established the right of students in North Carolina to attend alternative school during a suspension in most cases. Prior to establishing the Children’s Law Clinic in 2002, she served as supervising attorney in Duke’s AIDS Legal Project and as an instructor in the Legal Analysis, Research and Writing Program. Professor Wettach is the author of A Parents’ Guide to Special Education in North Carolina, School Vouchers in North Carolina, The First Three Years, and a contributing author of Special Education Advocacy and Guide to Student Advocacy in North Carolina. Professor Wettach received her B.A. in journalism in 1976 and her J.D. with honors in 1981. She earned both degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jordan Woods is an Assistant Professor of Law at University of Arkansas School of Law.  His primary research and teaching interests include criminal law and procedure, family law, law & sexuality, legal ethics, and constitutional law.  His recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review.   Woods’ 2017 article, “LGBT Identity and Crime,” 105 California Law Review 667 (2017), received the Dukeminier Award, which recognizes the best sexual orientation legal scholarship published in the previous year.  His article “Policing, Danger Narratives, and Routine Traffic Stops,” forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, was selected for presentation at the 2018 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum.  In 2017 and 2018, Woods was awarded the New Faculty Commendation for Teaching Commitment from the University of Arkansas.  Prior to joining the law faculty in 2016, Woods served as a fellow at the Williams Institute, a research institute on LGBT law and public policy at UCLA School of Law.  He clerked for the Honorable Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Woods holds an A.B. from Harvard College, J.D. from UCLA Scho