Top (from left to right): Michael Lawson • Bonny Garcia • Bill Lann Lee • Joe Alvarez • Gerald Torres • Stephen English
Bottom (from left to right): Penda D. Hair • Connie Rice • Catherine Unger • Molly Munger
NOT SHOWN: Harry Belafonte • Sheila Thomas

CHAIR

Gerald Torres, Esq.
University of Texas
Mr. Torres is Professor of Law at the University of Texas and former Senior Attorney in the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration. He and Professor Lani Guinier of Harvard Law School are the co-authors of the celebrated book Miner's Canary.

PRESIDENT

Molly Munger, Esq.
Co-Director, Advancement Project
Molly Munger brings an extensive background of legal expertise to Advancement Project, including twenty years as a federal prosecutor and business litigator. Before becoming a staff attorney with the Los Angeles office of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund in 1994, she was a partner in the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, served as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Federal Bar Association and participated actively in many bar committees and task forces. She received the Women Lawyers of Los Angeles Ernestine Stahlhut Award in 1996 and, with Co-Director Steve English, the ACLU of Southern California's Equal Justice Advocacy Award in 2002.

Munger is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She serves on the boards of the James Irvine Foundation, Occidental College and Children Now, and is a member of the K-12 Advisory Committee of the Rand Corporation.

SECRETARY/TREASURER

Stephen R. English, Esq.
Co-Director, Advancement Project
Stephen English was a partner in the Los Angeles office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius for twelve years, helping to manage a 20-lawyer litigation department. A committed advocate for legal services for the poor, he has served as board president of two major service providers-Public Counsel and the Inner City Law Center-and as President of the Los Angeles County Bar Foundation. He received the California State Bar President's Pro Bono Award in 1994 and, with Co-Director Munger, the ACLU of Southern California's Equal Justice Advocate award in 2002.

English is Chair-Elect of the Litigation Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and serves on the board of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. He is an honors graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School.

MEMBERS

Jose (Joe) Alvarez
Northeast Regional Director, American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Mr. Alvarez is a high-level official with the AFL/CIO - a voluntary federation of 66 national and international labor unions. A long-time activist, Mr. Alvarez's roots are in textile worker organizing in the South.

Harry Belafonte
Belafonte Enterprises, Inc.
Mr. Belafonte, internationally acclaimed entertainer and social activist, was a close confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He plays a major role in Advancement Project's Urban Peace Project.

Bonifacio (Bonny) Garcia, Esq.
Partner, Burke, Williams & Sorenson, LLP
Mr. Garcia is an attorney specializing in labor and education law and in the negotiation and litigation of complex matters.

Penda D. Hair, Esq.
Co-Director, Advancement Project
Ms. Hair heads the Washington office of Advancement Project. She is the author of the much-heralded Rockefeller Foundation's report on innovative civil rights strategies, Louder Than Words: Lawyers, Communities, and the Struggle for Justice (2001). Hair is the former Director of the Washington, D.C. office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc. and has twenty years of civil rights experience.

Bill Lann Lee, Esq.
Partner, Leif, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein
Mr. Lee is a 20-year civil rights veteran. He has served as Co-Director of the Los Angeles office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc., and as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration.

Michael Lawson, Esq.
Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Mr. Lawson is an attorney who works on all facets of executive compensation and employee benefits matters.

Connie Rice, Esq.
Co-Director, Advancement Project
Connie Rice is renowned for her unconventional approaches to tackling problems of inequity and exclusion. For example, she has teamed up with conservatives on education issues and the Los Angeles Police Department to support the Watts gang truce. Rice has received more than 50 major awards for her leadership of diverse coalitions, and her non-traditional approaches to litigating major cases involving police misconduct, employment discrimination and fair public resource allocation. She received the 2001 Peace Prize from the California Wellness Foundation and this year (2002) will receive the John Anson Ford Humanitarian Award from Los Angeles County. She successfully co-litigated class-action, civil rights cases winning more than $1.6 billion in policy changes and remedies during her nine year tenure in the Los Angeles office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF).

Rice is a graduate of Harvard College and the New York University School of Law. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times designated her one of 24 leaders considered the "most experienced, civic-minded and thoughtful people on the subject of Los Angeles." In 1999 California Law Business named her one of California's top 10 most influential lawyers. She serves on the boards of the Public Policy Institute of California and public radio station KPCC.

Sheila Thomas
Sheila Thomas is a plaintiff's employment attorney with her own practice in Oakland, California. Ms. Thomas has experience litigating both class and individual gender and race employment discrimination cases. Currently, Ms. Thomas is one of the attorneys litigating Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a nationwide gender discrimination class action against Wal-Mart Stores, and is Class Counsel to a class of women covered by a consent decree in Brown et al. v. Sacramento Regional Transit. She is also lead counsel and co-counsel in lawsuits against several employers for wage and hour violations in the state of California. Ms. Thomas currently is an adjunct faculty member at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Ms. Thomas was formerly the Director of Litigation at Equal Rights Advocates Inc., a San Francisco based legal women's advocacy organization where she litigated class action cases alleging employment discrimination against women. She also worked as an associate at the law firm of Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak and Baller. Prior to joining the Saperstein firm, she completed a two-year Skadden Fellowship at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Washington, DC.

In addition, Ms. Thomas clerked for the Honorable U.W. Clemon in the Northern District of Alabama. She is a graduate of Yale College and Georgetown University Law School.