Candidate Responses:

Describe your participation in the Partnership’s regional networks, policy committees, peer learning circles and other components of our Membership community 

I became a member this year, after becoming a Managing Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). I have since had the pleasure of being a part of the domestic violence / child welfare committee chaired by Chris Negri. Prior to assuming my role at LAFLA, I was teaching at UCLA School of Law, so while I followed CPEDV closely, I did not have an active membership. Up until this point, most of my committee and policy work has occurred within LA’s Family Law Coalition, and within subcommittees of the Domestic Violence Coalition here in Los Angeles.

Describe how your values are aligned with the values of the Partnership.

I remember coming across CPEDV’s Theory of Change document (dated October 2018) while I was still living in Boston, and printing it out and pasting it on the wall of my legal aid office. The assumptions and guiding principles outlined in that PDF perfectly captured so much of what I believe is crucial to this movement, from the importance of “passing the mic,” to working to connect other social justice movements with the (often siloed) DV movement, to pressing for alternatives to policing and prosecution.

CPEDV consistently demonstrates that it understands that while DV is a specific public health crisis that brings with it very specific safety and legal concerns, it is also fundamentally connected to other crises and manifestations of systemic oppression. I hope to continue growing in my understanding of this movement, and my small role in it, alongside partners and colleagues on the Board and within the wider membership.

What does leadership mean to you? How do you demonstrate leadership?

Leadership to me is (1) being able to keep one foot in the day-to-day crises, and one foot focused on the bigger picture; (2) being able to support your team in keeping an eye on the bigger picture, even as crises develop. I do my very best to do this for my team at LAFLA. I work hard to be emotionally and physically present for my staff, and to meet with them regularly to discuss their casework, their well-being, and their sense of how the “system” is working for (or against) their clients. Our constant communication helps me have a good sense of the structural barriers that are posing the toughest problems for survivors on the ground in the LA area. I then bring these issues to meetings with court executives, policy makers, and movement leaders.

Describe your skills, experience or interests that can benefit, strengthen or increase capacity of the Board.

I have devoted most of my career to representing domestic violence survivors and fighting the cycle of violence fed by the toxic combination of poverty, intergenerational trauma, intersecting oppressions, and ongoing abuse through the family court system. I moved to California after spending 6 years as a clinical instructor in the DV unit of Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center. In this capacity, I taught the domestic violence seminar, co-led a medical legal partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and guided students through representing survivors in district and family courts. I currently serve as the Managing Attorney for the Survivor and Family Justice Workgroup at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Our unit provides representation to low-income survivors of domestic violence across Los Angeles in varied family law matters from restraining order hearings, to divorces, custody and paternity disputes. I also coordinate the Family Law Coalition, a network of attorneys doing anti-domestic violence work across Los Angeles County.

I also have some (more buried) fundraising experience as well. As President of Harvard’s Women’s Law Association, I regularly engaged in rigorous fundraising with private firms, which funded multi-day conferences with speakers from across the world. After law school, I primarily did fundraising work for abortion funds, while serving as a case manager at the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund.

Describe how your relationships can enhance the work of the Partnership and the Board (for example, with policy-makers, media outlets, culturally specific communities, and the broader community). Tell us how you intend to cultivate those relationships on behalf of the Partnership.

Through my leadership at LAFLA, I have good working relationships with leaders within city government and the local courts. I expect those relationships to continue to deepen, as I lead the Family Law Coalition this year, and engage with the Mayor’s Office’s Domestic Violence Council. My team is also building a partnership with the Mayor’s Office and the agencies that house our local DART advocates. This partnership will eventually be housed in the City’s Family Justice Center.

I also have strong relationships within the law school community, particularly at the UC schools and Harvard. It would be an honor to be able to call upon the professors and clinical instructors who are doing domestic violence scholarship and clinical work to assist CPEDV. Regarding media outlets, I have a strong relationship with a senior editor at The Trace, the only newsroom dedicated to covering gun violence. She and I have spoken at length about the importance of reporting on the overlap between DV and gun violence – it would be fantastic to connect her to CPEDV.

Like other nonprofits, Partnership Board members are expected to raise funds on behalf of the organization. Describe how you can leverage relationships to enhance the image or capacity of the Partnership (for example, potential donors, business leaders, philanthropists) and how you will help us meet our annual fundraising goal.

My friends and I joke regularly about my ability to “ruin dinner conversations” by talking about my day job. While it makes for a good joke (and was probably accurate a decade ago when it started), I actually think I’ve gotten quite good at shifting the conversation to DV, and talking about it in a way that intrigues and engages the listener.

The bottom line is that anti-DV work is my primary passion, and I talk about it most of the time! I have no problem bringing it up over cocktails or at unrelated events, and I have a lot of experience making it relevant to the folks I’m talking to - regardless of how removed their lives seem from my clients’ realities. I practice this skill most regularly when building relationships with parents at my daughter’s school in Los Angeles. Several parents in her class have donated items or their time to my team, after suffering through my pitches! I am ready and eager to steer these conversations towards fundraising for an organization that I believe in.

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