Steve Eppler-Epstein is the executive director of Connecticut Legal Services, Inc. (CLS), which provides comprehensive civil legal help to low-income people throughout most of Connecticut. CLS’ lawyers are focused on achieving justice for low-income people and protecting and improving their lives. Steve, in particular, has advocated for continuous improvement of the legal services response to the needs of victims of domestic violence. 

Steve was a staff attorney with CLS for eleven years before becoming deputy director in 1995 and then executive director in 2007. As a staff attorney, his work focused on family/domestic violence law and public benefits law. His activities included client representation, community outreach, and lobbying. As a young attorney, Steve was an uninvited guest in the 1986 Governor’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, and ended up being enlisted to co-draft the major changes in domestic violence laws enacted that year. He returned to extensive lobbying work in the early 1990’s, as CLS’ lead lobbyist in efforts to minimize the damage from the legislature’s determination to eviscerate Connecticut’s “poor laws.” He was a regular trainer on welfare law, family law, and domestic violence law, and also wrote/co-wrote numerous articles and informational pamphlets on family law and domestic violence.  

In addition to serving on the CLAE board of directors, Steve has been very active in the development of CLAE’s Leadership Institute, serving on the design team, as a mentor, and a volunteer trainer. Previously, Steve also served on the board of directors of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. In 1991 he received the Governor’s Victim Services Award, and he has been recognized for his work against domestic violence by the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence in 1992 and 2008. He served from 2003 – 2005 on the board of directors and chair of the Social Justice Committee of Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison, Connecticut.

Currently, Steve serves on the Coordinating Work Group of the Connecticut Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Partnership Initiative, a collaboration between Domestic Violence programs, CCADV, and the legal assistance programs that is funded by the federal Office of Violence Against Women. He is also a fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, and co-chair of the Advisory Council to the Judicial Branch Office of Victim Services.

Tom Garrett has practiced law in Vermont for more than 30 years, as a Chittenden County Deputy States Attorney and as a staff attorney and project director at Vermont Legal Aid. Most of his work has been on behalf of Vermont individuals and families who have low income or are disabled or elderly. Since 1996, he has been Executive Director of Legal Services Law Line of Vermont, a non-profit law firm that specializes in community education, counsel, advice, and brief service to low income Vermonters. He got his undergraduate education at the University of Chicago and his legal education at the University of Connecticut School of Law. 

Away from the world of law, Tom has a master's degree in philosophy from Hunter College, City University of New York, and is a film maker and adjunct professor of cinema studies at Burlington College. Tom lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife, Barbara Murphy.

Jonathan Spack has over 30 years’ experience leading and consulting to nonprofit organizations. During his 26 years as executive director of Third Sector New England and its predecessor, he has successfully guided the organization through several transitions, including its re-invention as a leading regional capacity-builder and resource center for small to midsized nonprofits. 

Founded in 1959, TSNE is one of the nation’s most experienced fiscal sponsors. In 2004 it acquired a historic 120,000 sq. ft., office building in Boston’s Leather District which it has developed into the NonProfit Center, “Boston’s Home for Progressive Social Change.” The NPC is currently home to 29 nonprofit organizations, including the Center for Legal Aid Education. 

Earlier in his career, Jonathan worked with community-based organizations in Massachusetts and New Jersey and with Native American groups in North Dakota and Zuni, New Mexico, as a VISTA Volunteer, "Reggie" (Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow) and Legal Services attorney (his law degree is from New York University). He is co-author of the Executive Director’s Guide, published by TSNE in 2002, and is a founding member of the Nonprofit Centers Network, the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network.

Bonnie Allen divides her time between the Mississippi Center for Justice and the University of Maryland School of Law. At the Center, Bonnie serves as Director of Training and Foundation Development. At the law school, she is a clinical law instructor and teaches Ethics and Professional Responsibility and the Mississippi Summer Recovering Communities Clinic. Bonnie also is helping to launch the law school’s Leadership, Ethics and Democracy-Building Initiative funded by the Fetzer Institute.

Previously, Bonnie served as President of the Center for Law & Renewal, based at the Fetzer Institute. She also held the Executive Director position at Just Neighbors Immigrant Ministry, Inc. in Arlington, Virginia, and she co-directed the Project for the Future of Equal Justice based at the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the Center for Law and Social Policy. Bonnie also served as Director of the American Bar Association Center for Pro Bono. Ms. Allen began her legal career as a Judicial Law Clerk for the Second District Court of Appeal in Florida, and she practiced law in the private and local government sectors in Tampa for seven years.  

Ms. Allen is a 1984 graduate of the University of Florida College of Law where she was an instructor in the Appellate Advocacy program. She also holds a B.A. in International Studies from Rhodes College and a Master’s Degree in Theological Studies from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Ms. Allen earned a certificate in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University’s Washington College of Law 2004 Summer Program. She also holds a Certificate in Transformational Leadership from Georgetown University, and she is a Senior Research Fellow at the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ms. Allen is a member of the Florida Bar and the American Bar Association. She consulted with the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative as a commentator on proposed legal aid laws in Ukraine and Moldova. She has published numerous articles on public interest law, and she edited and co-authored the book Shifting the Field of Law and Justice: Reshaping the Lawyer’s Identity, published in 2007 by the Center for Law & Renewal. She also authored an essay in Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead, edited by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner and published by Jossey-Bass. 

Justin Hansford was born in NW Washington DC, and raised in the Washington DC. metro area.  After graduating from Howard University in 2003, Justin traveled to Brazil where he learned Portuguese and used music and the arts to teach English to high-risk Brazilian youth. Justin then returned to DC to attend Georgetown University Law Center. While at Georgetown, Justin was a founding member of the Georgetown Journal of Global Critical Race Perspectives, a nationally published academic law journal. He also served as executive director for two years and was a founding member of the Global Race and Identity Project, a student organization that helps promote diversity at the law center. He also founded and managed an after school program at that uses the Hip Hop to teach literacy to teenage youth.

After graduating from law school, Justin worked with Imagine Southeast Public Charter School in Southeast DC. In this capacity, he provided development consultation, start up assistance, and legal advice to the school, which opened this past August. Justin then served as a staff member for Obama For America in Ohio. Justin then served as a Law Fellow at the University of Maryland School of Law Community Development Legal Clinic. He is currently a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Patrick Hogan is CLAE’s first Board Fellow. He serves as Vice President in State Street Bank’s Municipal Products Group. In this capacity, Patrick manages a $3 billion municipal bond securitization business. His responsibilities include portfolio management and new product development. Patrick joined State Street in 2001 and has served in his current position since 2006.

In addition to supporting CLAE as a Board Fellow, Patrick serves as a mentor to a young adult in Year Up Boston’s professional development program and as a volunteer financial consultant to Friends of Young Achievers, a nonprofit organization supporting a Boston pilot school.

Patrick holds a B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College and is a CFA charterholder.

Laurence M. (Lonny) Rose is Professor Emeritus of Law and Director of the Litigation Skills Program at the University of Miami School of Law and served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) from 2006-2010.

After serving as a law Clerk to Chief Judge James S. Holden of the U.S. District Court of Vermont, Rose was in private practice in Burlington, Vermont, Executive Director of the Douglas County (KS) Legal Aid Society and has served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Florida.

Prof. Rose began his law teaching career at the University of Kansas School of Law in 1976 and moved to the University of Miami in 1990. He is admitted as an attorney in Vermont and Kansas and currently serves in Leadership within the American Bar Association's Section of Litigation.

Rose was selected for the 1998 Richard S. Jacobson Award for Excellence in Teaching Trial Advocacy by the Roscoe Pound Foundation and in 2001 was named an Academic Fellow by the International Society of Barristers. Prof. Rose has taught in more than 300 trial advocacy programs throughout the world and is the author of more than 100 books, articles and other legal publications.

Courses Taught

• Trial Skills

 Julia Santiago is Director of Human Resources & Strategic Directions at Year Up Boston. Previously, she was a Senior Consultant at Interaction Associates and Interaction Institute for Social Change. She holds a PhD in Organization Development and an MA in Instructional Design from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a BA from the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, PR.