Affirmative Litigation Training

John Bouman was named president of the Shriver Center effective January 1, 2007. He also remains the Shriver Center's director of advocacy, his position since 1996. He joined the Shriver Center in May 1996 after twenty-one years at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, where he supervised public benefits issues and policy advocacy from 1985. Prior to that, he provided multi-issue direct representation in several Chicago neighborhoods for nine years and held a position as a specialist in the foundation's Elderly Law Project.

He has won numerous awards for his career and accomplishments in antipoverty legal and advocacy work. He is recognized for being one of the most effective and thoughtful public-benefit advocates in the country. He was a leader in the design and implementation of positive aspects of Illinois's new welfare law in 1997. Recently he led the successful statewide effort to create the FamilyCare program to provide health care insurance to up to 300,000 working poor parents of minor children, and he was a leader in the successful advocacy to create All Kids, the first state program of universal coverage for children. Bouman is lead counsel in Memisovski v. Maram, a successful case establishing substantial reforms in children's health care in Illinois. He is a founding and current member of the steering committee of the National Transitional Jobs Network. He is a frequent lecturer and trainer on a variety of social policy, advocacy, and lawyering subjects. He is a 1975 graduate of Valparaiso University School of Law and member of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Chicago Bar Association.

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation
• Fostering Affirmative, Broad-Based Advocacy

Vice President of Training Programs

Ellen Hemley brings over 30 years of experience in the equal justice community to her role as Vice President of Training Programs. Prior to joining the Shriver Center, Ellen served as executive director of the Center for Legal Aid Education, which provided training and leadership development programs to equal justice advocates nationally. Previously, Ellen was Director of Training at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute where, among other things, she oversaw CLAE's predecessor, the Legal Services Training Consortium of New England. She also served for many years as an independent consultant; her clients included the American Bar Association, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the Florida Bar Foundation, the Washington Access to Justice Commission, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the Massachusetts Union of Public Housing Tenants, and scores of other legal aid networks, bar foundations and justice-related programs across the country.

Courses Taught

• 2006-2007 NE Leadership Institute
• 2008-2009 NE Leadership Institute
• 2009-2010 Florida Leadership Institute
• 2010-11 Florida Leadership Institute
• Affirmative Litigation
• Board Development
• Board Development - May
• Community Lawyering
• Community Legal Education
• Essential Skills for Hotline Supervisors
• Supervision Skills for Equal Justice Providers
• Supervision Skills: Difficult Conversations & Constructive Feedback
• Whole Client / Whole Advocate

Gregory Bass has been in legal services since 1981, with programs in Alabama, Washington, California and Connecticut: for the past 12 years at Greater Harford Legal Aid, where he is litigation director focusing on federal and state court class actions and individual litigation. Throughout his career, Greg has worked in a number of different areas, including benefits, housing, health, family, senior, consumer, employment, and civil rights. He has taught at numerous legal services trainings, many of which have been through CLAE. In his spare time, Greg enjoys racquet sports, hoops, baseball, music, reading, and travel. A Seattle expatriate, he now lives in New England with his wife, son, two dogs and two cats.

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation
• Case Planning & Discovery

Dick Bauer is a Senior Attorney in the Housing Unit at Greater Boston Legal Services, to which he has recently returned after spending most of the past year here at CLAE as the Senior Equal Justice Training Fellow.   An MIT and Northeastern Law School graduate, Dick served as a mentor in CLAE’s inaugural Leadership Institute. He has been in Legal Services since 1982, and a member of the Supreme Judicial Court Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure since 1998.  In his other life, Dick is Chair of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission, the Somerville representative on the Middlesex Canal Commission, Co-Chair of the Jewish Labor Committee, an Executive Committee member and Past President of Congregation Kahal B'Raira, a member of the Social Action Committee of Congregation B’Nai Brith, and a leader in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. For fun, Dick likes to lead historic bicycle tours and is the Vegvayzer (“way-shower”) of a Workmen’s Circle’s Yiddish conversation group.  His wife Roberta Bauer is a regulatory specialist at the Community Research Initiative of New England. They have three children (including their son-in-law), and recently did the Harbor-to-the Bay AIDS ride on their tandem bicycle for the third time (once again in the pouring rain).

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation
• Case Planning & Discovery

Anne Blanchard is litigation director at Connecticut Legal Services, the program she joined immediately after passing her bar exam and remains at nearly 20 years later. Most recently, Anne served as co-counsel in the Carr v. Wilson-Coker suit, a class action which challenged the lack of adequate dental services for low income children that resulted in an $80 million settlement in 2008. She has also appeared before the Second Circuit multiple times, for cases involving special education, social security, and mental health issues. Away from work, Anne is a nationally-ranked kayak athlete—a pursuit through which she has had the pleasure of representing America on the world stage (World Championships in the Czech Republic last September, before you ask).

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation
• Discovering Electronic Data

Jim Breslauer ("Bres") is the Advocacy Coordinator at Neighborhood Legal Services in Lynn and Lawrence Massachusetts. He started his legal   services career in Lancaster Pennsylvania before there were Selectric typewriters or white out. After a break selling high end stereo equipment, he worked for the Pennsylvania Coalition on Food and Nutrition doing statewide food stamp and school breakfast and lunch work. Then Reagan defunded the program. Luckily his wife, Deb Thomson, got a legal services job in Massachusetts and they moved to New England. A year later he was hired by Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell as their benefits attorney. After six years, he became Associate Director/Litigation director at MVLS. On April 1, 1996 (no foolin - actual date) he was hired as the Advocacy Coordinator and staff humorist (not necessarily in that order) at NLS. He lives with Deb, 3 dogs and 3 cats in central Mass. Their son Andy and their 2 grandchildren, Sandra and Eric, live in Lowell.

Courses Taught

• Administrative Hearing Skills
• Affirmative Litigation
• Fundamentals of Attorneys Fees

Bob Capistrano is director of advocacy and training at Bay Area Legal Aid (before joining his current program in 1999, he spent 23 years at San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation). He works primarily in the areas of public benefits, health access, and public and subsidized housing, and has authored chapters five and eight of the Federal Practice Manual. Bob is president of the Legal Aid Association of California, and a board member at the General Assistance Advocacy Project. His prior experience as a trainer includes various NLADA Substantive Law conferences and a 2008 EJW/West California Practice and Advocacy Skills training; his recreational endeavors involve economics, history, roots music, and something else called ‘zydeco dancing’ (apparently popular in Louisiana).

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation

Litigation director at New Haven Legal Assistance Foundation, Shelley White has litigated numerous cases in federal and state courts (involving the Fair Housing Act, Medicaid, and federal and state constitutional claims), including appeals to the Second Circuit and to Connecticut Supreme and Appellate Courts. Twenty two years at her program, Shelley has previously worked for the ACLU of Connecticut (for five years) and for one year as a lobbyist for Connecticut legal services program. She has been an Affirmative Litigation trainer for over 10 years and participated in the design of this program. In her spare time, Shelley particularly enjoys reading and the theatre, and spending quality time with her adult sons and her dog, Lily.

Courses Taught

• Affirmative Litigation
• Fundamentals of Attorneys Fees