Ann Lever has spent the last 29 years at the Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, where she is currently litigation director. Throughout her career she has litigated a number of affirmative impact cases in areas of healthcare access, fair housing, housing preservation, special education, immigration, treatment of the homeless, and other civil rights and poverty law issues. One of Ann’s fair housing cases resulted in the first federal appellate decision holding that the demolition of federally assisted housing constituted disparate impact race discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act. A graduate of Saint Louis University School of Law, Ann also serves the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council Recovery, has completed a term on the board of trustees of the ACLU-Eastern Missouri, and is an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University School of Law instructing on pretrial civil practice.
Joel Ferber is the managing attorney of the Health and Welfare unit of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, where he has conducted extensive policy analysis and advocacy regarding welfare reform, Medicaid, managed care, the Food Stamp Program, and low income health care issues. Joel has litigated Medicaid and other public benefits cases in the United States District Courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was also one of the lead attorneys representing Missouri consumer groups in the settlement of a lawsuit involving the reorganization of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri: a settlement that established the Missouri Foundation for Health, the largest health care foundation in the state of Missouri. Joel has been a presenter at numerous state and national conferences dealing with Medicaid, public benefits, and low-income health issues, and has written extensively on these and other subjects in Clearinghouse Review, the St. Louis University Law Journal and elsewhere. Joel is a graduate of John Hopkins University and New York University School of Law.
Linda Zazove is the deputy director for Programs and Advocacy at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, a 65-county program in central and southern Illinois, where she has worked for most of her 28 years practicing law. Her current responsibilities include program planning, as well as encouraging, supporting, and engaging in strategic litigation and advocacy. Linda has been involved in affirmative litigation involving public benefits, discrimination and housing issues, and has also clerked for a federal judge. Early in her career, she was in private practice for four years, where she filed her first class action on behalf of Illinois Social Security recipients whose benefits had been terminated without a showing of medical improvement. Linda served on the ABA Task Force to Revise the ABA Standards for the Provision of Civil Legal Aid, and is currently on the board of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Randall Berg’s first job out of law school was to establish the Florida Justice Institute, a small public interest law firm in Miami, where he remains 30 years later. The firm has been involved in numerous individual and major statewide class action lawsuits for injunctive relief and damages to improve Florida's prisons. It handles other large impact cases for the poor, especially in the areas of housing, disabilities, and education. The Florida Justice Institute also established and initially staffed the first IOLTA program in the country in Florida, and then worked nationwide to establish IOLTA programs as the National IOLTA Clearinghouse, and later defended IOLTA's constitutionality. Randy’s pro bono work includes being the past president and legal panel chair of the ACLU of Florida.
Roberto Cruz is a staff attorney with the Legal Advocacy Center of Central Florida (LACCF). LACCF is a non-profit law firm dedicated to litigating impact cases and class action law suits on behalf of low income individuals in the Central Florida area. Roberto has been practicing law for 10 years and working with LACCF for 18 months. He has led or co-counseled several state and federal cases on issues involving civil rights, fair housing, affordable housing, mortgage foreclosures, and rescue scams. He became involved in affirmative litigation, particularly, because of the prospect of making a positive impact in the community and protecting the public interest. Roberto believes that cases and projects impact our community and hold public and private institutions accountable for unlawful, discriminatory, unfair and deceptive practices.
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).
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.