June 8, 2008

LEGAL AID SOCIETY
OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS

ATTORNEY PROFILES

ADMINISTRATION

Executive Director

    Gary Housepian is a graduate of Houghton College and a 1977 graduate of the University of Detroit Law School.  He became Executive Director of LAS in July 2007.  From 2002 to 2007 he was Managing Attorney of the Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee (the state’s protection and advocacy program).  From 1997 to 2001 he was managing attorney with LAS’s Murfreesboro office.  He has also worked as a trial attorney in private practice and as the General Counsel to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation and then as General Counsel to the Tennessee Department of Human Services.  He has worked as a staff attorney with the Tennessee Justice Center, the Legal Aid Society in Knoxville and as a VISTA attorney with Legal Services to Migrant Farm Workers in El Mirage, Arizona.  He has served as a Hearing Committee Member for the Board of Professional Responsibility and as Chair of the Board of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services.  He has received many awards and recognitions, including the Arc of Tennessee Outstanding Community Leadership Award in 2005.  His interests include playing basketball and softball and following the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers. 


General Counsel

    Neil McBride is a 1970 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School.  He worked as a staff attorney with Ralph Nader in Washington, D. C.  In 1972 he formed a community-based public interest law firm in Tennessee’s Appalachian coal fields.  In 1978 he founded and became the first director of Rural Legal Services of Tennessee, a position he held until consolidation in 2002.  He was lead counsel in a case before the Tennessee Supreme Court that clarified the constitutional rights of natural parents in termination proceedings.  He   teaches a clinical seminar on nonprofit corporations at the University of Tennessee College of Law.  He has conducted on-site evaluations of more than 100 legal aid programs throughout the country.  He is a Fellow of the Tennessee Bar Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and a member of the Tennessee Bar Association’s House of Delegates.  In 2006 he was appointed to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense, the ABA’s primary policy-setting body on issues related to legal assistance to the poor.       


Assistant General Counsel

    David Kozlowski is a 1974 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.  He was a clinical instructor at the Vanderbilt Legal Clinic from 1975 to 1980, at which time he joined the Legal Aid Society.  In 2001 he worked with the Tennessee Justice Center, to assist on a federal class action involving the Tennessee Medicaid Program.  In 2002 he became Assistant General Counsel to the Legal Aid Society.  He has been lead counsel on some of the most significant state and federal court decisions in Tennessee involving prisoner and juvenile rights.  He is the author of leading reference works on Tennessee unemployment security law and chapters on juvenile and general sessions appeals in Tennessee Appellate Practice and Tennessee Law of Children.  He is a frequent presenter at local, state and national training events.  He received the Tennessee Bar Association’s award as the Public Service Attorney of the Year in 1998.  He is a certified high school soccer referee.


Managing Attorney

    Pat Mock is a 1979 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1984. She was formerly a student attorney with the University of Tennessee Legal Clinic and an assistant professor of business law at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville. In 2002, she received the Tennessee Alliance of Legal Services’ B. Riney Green Award, for promoting collaboration among legal aid programs. She is active in state bar affairs. She is a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Advisory Commission on Rules of Practice and Procedure and has served since 1997 as a member of the Hearing Committee of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility. She is a regular presenter at state and national trainings on trial practice and litigation. 

Staff Attorneys

    Kevin Fowler is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and a 1990 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law.  Before joining the Legal Aid Society in 1993, he worked in private practice and with Memphis Area Legal Services.  At MTSU he received the Norman L. Parks Award in Political Science and at UNC he received the American Jurisprudence Award for Torts.

    James McWilliams is a graduate of Oakwood College and is a 2003 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.  During law school he won Scholastic Excellence Awards for highest grades in Evidence and Federal Income Taxation.  He worked as an associate with the firm of King & Ballow in Nashville; a researcher and writer with the First Amendment Center in Nashville and a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Max Cleland.  He was a news reporter for more than ten years before graduating law school and three years afterward.  Most recently he reported for The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper, where he investigated and reported on legislative and legal issues.  His journalism has gained recognition from several national publications and organizations, including Editor & Publisher magazine, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.  His personal interests include creating visual art and producing videos.

COLUMBIA OFFICE

Managing Attorney

    David Kozlowski (See Administration, above.)

Staff Attorneys

    Steven Christopher is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School.  He holds a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University.  While in law school he was an editor of the Human Rights Journal, worked as a mediator in small claims court and interned with the Appleseed Center for Electoral Reform and the Labor Law Project.  He also participated in the school’s civil legal clinic at the Hale and Dorr Center.  Upon graduation he was an associate with the Labor and Employment Practice Group of the firm of Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia.  He formerly clerked for West Tennessee Legal Services.  While attending Divinity School, he volunteered with the Legal Aid Society’s Domestic Violence Unit.  Before attending law school he was an associate minister for four years in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he was active in programs serving families in need.   He initially joined LAS in 2002.  In 2006 he left for about a year to work in private practice in Clarksville, and rejoined Legal Aid in 2007. 

    Joshua Decker attended undergraduate and law school at the University of Chicago.  He graduated from law school and joined the Legal Aid Society in 2006.  At law school, he worked with the Police Accountability Project of the Mandel Legal Aid clinic and was the recipient of two law school grants for summer public interest internships.  He was a law clerk in Nashville with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and with the Federal Public Defender’s Office.  He speaks Spanish.  



Managing Attorney

    Marla K. Williams is a l988 graduate of the University of Louisville School of Law.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1988.  She served as a District representative on the Board of the Tennessee Bar Association's Young Lawyer Division from 1995 to 2000.  She coordinated the YLD’s high school mock trial competitions in her district.  She has served on the advisory boards of the Tennessee Vocational Training Center and Consumer Credit Counseling.  She serves on the boards of Putnam County Court Appointed Special Advocates and the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services.  She is a graduate of Leadership Putnam and has been a member of its Board of Trustees since that time.  Marla has taught law and paralegal studies at Volunteer State Community College. From 1997 to 2003 she served as a member of the Hearing Committee of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility.  She is from Clay County.

Staff Attorneys

    William Bush is a graduate of Princeton University and a 1978 graduate of Case Western Reserve University Law School, where he was an editor of the Law and Housing Journal and of the Law Review.  He was a national board member of the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council.  He was a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow with Southeast Tennessee Legal Services.  In 1981 he was staff attorney with Education/Instruction, a fair housing advocacy organization in Boston, Massachusetts. He joined the Legal Aid Society in 1982.  He successfully litigated one of the nation’s first private enforcement actions under the Family and Medical Leave Act.  He spends one day a week in private practice, concentrating on employment litigation involving issues such as FMLA, Americans with Disability Act, and Title VII.  He is past president of the Upper Cumberland Trial Lawyers Association and was the founder and co-chair of the board of Dismas House of the Upper Cumberlands in Cookeville.
   
    Rachel Moses is a 1999 graduate of Centre College and a 2002 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law.  In law school she was the founder and coordinator of the Family Justice Project and the Pet Project (which assisted victims of domestic violence by establishing a network of veterinarians and others who could keep pets) and was coordinator of the VITA taxpayer assistance program.  She was a student attorney at the UT Legal Clinic and clerked for two summers and one semester with the Legal Aid Society’s Oak Ridge office.  She is a District Representative for the Tennessee Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division and coordinates the YLD’s local high school mock trial competition.  She is an active softball player and coaches youth basketball and softball.  She is President of the Cookeville Breakfast Rotary Club.  She is also Secretary of the Evening Lions Club.  She serves on the board of directors of CASA in Putnam County and serves on the board of Girls Inc. in her home town of Oak Ridge. 

GALLATIN OFFICE

Managing Attorney

    David Tarpley.  See Nashville, below.

Staff Attorney

    Andrae Crismon is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and a 2003 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was Associate Editor of the Journal of Transnational Law.  In 2006 he was the In-house Counsel/Director of Operations for Victory 2006, the coordinated campaign for the Democratic Party in Tennessee.  He also worked with the Office of General Counsel for the Tennessee Department of Health and clerked with the Honorable Inez Smith Reid, District of Columbia Court of Appeals.  In 2008 he was appointed to the Tennessee Bar Association’s House of Delegates.  His personal interests include golf, fishing and reading John Grisham novels.  He serves as assistant pastor to two churches in the Murfreesboro area.    


Managing Attorney

    Barbara Futter is a 1989 graduate of American University Washington School of Law.  She joined the Legal Aid Society as a staff attorney in 2000.  From 1990 to 1995 she was an Assistant Public Defender in Nashville.  In 1994 she took a leave of absence to volunteer with the Legal Aid Society.  From 1996 to 2000 she worked at Dismas House, a program for released inmates with nine sites in five states.  In 1997 she helped organize the Living Room, a program under which homeless people help other homeless people become more stable, which still operates in Nashville.  From 2001 to 2003 she taught a class at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, designed to help inmates learn to live more healthy lives in prison and to prepare them for life in the free world.  In 2005, the Tennessee Bar Association awarded her its Public Service Attorney of the Year Award for 2004-2005.  She is the founding board member of the Brain Injury Relief and Education Fund and serves on the board of Directors of the Brain Injury Association of Tennessee.  

    Renee Turner is a 2001 graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she was active in the journal Public Interest Law Reporter and the Black Law Students Association.  She holds a Masters Degree in History from Purdue and was in the U.S. Air Force before attending undergraduate school.



Managing Attorney and Director of the Nashville Pro Bono Program

    Lucinda Smith is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and a 1976 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.  After graduation she clerked for the Davidson County Chancery Court, practiced with the State of Tennessee and worked in private practice.  She served as managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Family Law Section from 1987 to 1990.  From 1991 to 2003 she was with the firm of Dodson, Parker Dinkins & Behm.  She returned to the Legal Aid Society to direct The Nashville Pro Bono Program, a joint venture of the Legal Aid Society and Nashville Bar Association.  She has served as First Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Board of the Nashville Bar Association.  She was Nashville’s Pro Bono Volunteer of the Year in 1995.  She is an adjunct professor at the Vanderbilt University Law School, where she teaches a course in family law.  She is former Chair of the Metro Human Relations Commission and is active in the Lawyers’ Association for Women and the Tennessee Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee. 

    Kathryn Calhoon is a graduate of Swarthmore College and a 1978 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law.  She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of North Carolina.  She first joined the Legal Aid Society in 1978.  After ten years, she left to join the Department of Law for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.  She returned to the Legal Aid Society in 1989.  She handles cases involving Social Security, TennCare and other health and disability issues.  She regularly presents training in these fields to local and regional groups.  She has taught the Juvenile Practice Clinic at the Vanderbilt Legal Clinic.  She has been on the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Association for Women, Marion Griffin Chapter, and on the Advisory Board of the Center for Health Services at Vanderbilt University.  She is past president of the West End Synagogue and is a long-standing member of the Minority Opportunities Committee of the Nashville Bar Association.

    Jean Crowe, Lead Attorney for Family Law, is a 1981 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School.  She has a Diploma from the Institute on International and Comparative Law, Paris, and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Northwestern University, Evanston.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1985.  She was formerly in private practice in Madison, Wisconsin.  She is a local and national leader in the field of family law and domestic violence.  In Nashville, she is Chair of the Domestic Violence Death Review Team and Chair of the Board of the Nashville Coalition Against Domestic violence.  She is a frequent presenter at local, state and national events and has presented training on domestic violence to Navy and Marine officers as part of their official training.  Among other bar leadership positions, she is chair of the Pro Bono Awards Committee and Chair of the Domestic Violence Committee of American Bar Association’s Family Law Section.  She is the Section’s liaison to the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Profession.  She served on the original Tennessee Child Support Commission and on the Child Support Advisory Task Force.  She is a member of the Board of Editors of the Family Law Quarterly. 

    Linda Narrow McLemore is a 1990 graduate of the National Law Center of George Washington University, where she participated in the civil legal clinic and interned with the Food Research and Action Center and the Migrant Legal Action Program.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1990 and works with the Health and Benefits Unit.  In 2001-2002 she took a leave of absence to assist the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services on issues related to its compliance with recent federal class action orders.  She works on health, benefits and children’s issues.   

    Jessica Myers attended Barnard College and is a 2006 graduate of Harvard Law School.  She joined LAS in 2006 as a Skadden Fellow.  At law school she was Advice Director of the Tenant Advice Project, student representative to the Faculty Committee for Public Service and legal intern at the Hale & Door Legal Services Center and the Family Advocacy Program at the Boston Medical Center.  She was a paralegal with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Director of the Campaign for America’s Future, also in D.C.  While in college in New York City she worked with the Welfare Reform and Human Rights Documentation Project and the Urban Justice Center.  She was a law clerk with the Legal Aid Society in the summer of 2005.  She is from Nashville. 

    Robert Nadler, Tennessee Taxpayer Project, is a1972 graduate of the University of Illinois School of Law.  Mr. Nadler, who is a certified public accountant, worked for 30 years as an attorney/manager in the District Counsel Office of the Internal Revenue Service in Nashville.  In 2002, he joined the Legal Aid Society’s Tennessee Taxpayer Project, which represents low-wage workers who have controversies with the IRS.  Mr. Nadler has taught tax procedures at the Nashville School of Law and the Vanderbilt University School of Law.  He has published several articles on taxpayer rights. 

    Russ Overby, Lead Attorney for Health and Benefits, is a graduate of Wheaton College and a 1974 graduate Vanderbilt Law School.  He worked at the Legal Aid Society in Nashville from 1974 until 1993 and was lead counsel in several significant federal and state cases involving public benefits and the rights of children in state institutions.  He was a Clinical Instructor at Vanderbilt from 1974 to 1977.  In 1993 he became managing attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Murfreesboro office.  From 1997 to 2005 he worked as the Welfare Reform Lawyer at the Tennessee Justice Center.  He rejoined the Legal Aid Society in 2006, where he now works on housing and public benefits cases.  He has written and conducted trainings for national audiences on public benefits issues.  He received the State Advocate of the Year Award from the Tennessee Conference on Social Welfare in 1998 and the Harry Chapin Advocacy Award from MANNA in 1997.  In 2008 the Tennessee Bar Association awarded him its public service attorney of the year award, which this year was renamed The Ashley T. Wiltshire Public Service Attorney of the Year Award, in honor of the Legal Aid Society’s recently retired, long-time Executive Director.. 

    Chay Sengkhounmany is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and a 2003 graduate of Georgia State University College of Law.  She has worked for the Immigrant Legal Clinic of the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence where she represented immigrant victims of domestic or sexual violence, trafficking or stalking.  She has conducted local and national trainings on immigration relief for abused victims.  Her VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) Motion to Reopen and VAWA Board of Immigration Appeal brief are being used as national training models by Advanced Special Immigrant Survivors Technical Assistance.  She has also worked extensively with the College of Law’s Low Income Tax Clinic and with the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel in Atlanta.  Shortly after law school, she wrote a book on the history of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta.  She staffs the Medical Legal Partnership between the Legal Aid Society and the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. 
   
     David Tarpley, Lead Attorney for Housing and Consumer Law, is a 1971 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.  He joined the Legal Aid Society in 1971 and became managing attorney of the Consumer Section in 1974.  He has practiced extensively in the field of consumer law and is a frequent presenter at local, state and regional training.  He served for 26 years on the Board of Directors of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Middle Tennessee.  He has been on the adjunct faculty of the Vanderbilt University Law School since 1986 and teaches a course on consumer credit protection.  In 2007 he was appointed to the faculty of the Nashville School of Law, where he will also teach a course in Consumer Protection.  In 1997 he received the Tennessee Bar Association’s award for the Public Service Attorney of the Year.  In 2003 the Nashville Business Journal identified him as one of the outstanding 100 lawyers in the Nashville bar.  He also serves as Managing Attorney for the Gallatin Office.  David is an avid amateur musician and plays French horn with the Trevecca Symphony Orchestra.

  
Managing Attorney

     Neil McBride (See Administration, above.)

Staff Attorneys

    Lenny Croce is a 1973 graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.  He joined the Legal Aid Society in 1978.  He was formerly in private practice in Colorado and managed a branch office of the Denver Legal Aid Society.  He was lead counsel before the U.S. Supreme Court in Block v. Neal, which held the Farmers Home Administration liable for the negligent inspection of defective home construction.  He has been lead counsel in major litigation involving housing, public benefits and health care.  In 1996 Mr. Croce received the Tennessee Bar Association's Public Service Attorney of the Year award.  He works part time with the Tennessee Justice Center, with whom he conducts state-wide class action litigation.  He has taught pre-trial litigation at the University of Tennessee College of Law and served on the board of East Tennessee Technology Access Center.  He is counsel to Habitat for Humanity for Anderson County and regularly works on Habitat construction projects.   

    Mary Michelle Gillum, Coordinator, Tennessee Taxpayer Project, has an accounting degree from the University of Tennessee and is a 2000 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law.  She began working with the Legal Aid Society in 2000 with a full fellowship from Equal Justice Works.  While in law school, she was active in Transactions:  The Tennessee Journal of Business Law.  She interned in LAS’s Oak Ridge office for two summers and one semester.  In 1998 she received an award from EJW as one of the nation’s outstanding public interest interns.  She received the law school’s William Leech Jr. Public Service award.  Before attending law school she worked as an accountant and as a teacher in welfare-to-work programs for low-income women.  She is co-chair of the ABA Section on Taxation’s Low Income Taxpayer ESL Taxpayer Subcommittee.  Ms. Gillum is a member and former Chair of the Campbell County School Board.  In 2004 she received the B. Riney Green Award from the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services, for outstanding efforts to promote collaboration among legal aid programs.  She is a participant in the Tennessee Bar Association’s 2006 Leadership Law program for outstanding young lawyers.  She is from LaFollette. 

    Mary Lyn Goodman is a 1997 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law.  At law school, she was a member of a national trial team and a volunteer at a women’s shelter.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1997.  She directs the Oak Ridge office’s Pro Bono program.  She is a member of the Anderson County Elder Abuse Review Board and is a policy advocate on behalf of the East Tennessee Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.  She is President of the Anderson County Bar Association and is from Knoxville.  She was a member of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Leadership Law Program for outstanding young leaders in 2008.    

    Janet Mynatt is a 1993 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 2002.  She previously worked with a private law firm representing Social Security disability claimants.  From 1995 to 1996, she served as an AmeriCorps attorney with a domestic violence/sexual assault project in Eugene, Oregon.  She began working with the Legal Aid Society as a volunteer with the Oak Ridge office as an in-house pro bono attorney in 1998 and 2001.  In 2005-2006 she was a National Consumer Law Center Fellow.  She is from Oak Ridge.

    Theresa-Vay Smith is a 1996 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law and the Tennessee College of Business MBA program.  She joined the Legal Aid Society in 1997.  While at law school, she was a member of a National Trial Team and Moot Court Board and active in the legal clinic.  Upon graduation, she was a volunteer attorney with the Knoxville Legal Aid Society.  She serves on the board of directors of CASA of the Tennessee Heartland and on the board of Community Mediation of Anderson County, for whom she is   Vice President.  She participated in the Tennessee Bar Association’s 2005 Leadership Law program for outstanding young lawyers.  She is on the editorial board of the Clearinghouse Review, a national publication of the Shriver Center on Law and Poverty.  She serves on the board of directors of Chalet Ice Rinks, Inc., in Knoxville, where she coaches and teaches competitive ice-skating.  She is from Knoxville.   



Managing Attorney

    Norm Feaster is a 1980 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he was a leader of several student public interest groups.  He holds an MA in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University.   He joined the Legal Aid Society in 1980 and became managing attorney in 1991.  He is an avid runner and triathlete, and competes throughout the region.  He serves on the board of directors of the Friends of the South Cumberland Recreation Area, which includes Savage Gulf, Foster Falls, Fiery Gizzard, Stone Door and Buggy Top Cave.  He regularly hikes and backpacks in the desert southwest, where he leads archeological surveys and trail maintenance hikes.     

Staff Attorney

    Amelia Miller Luna is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and a 2003 graduate of the University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.  She joined the Legal Aid Society upon graduation.  While at law school, she worked with the Elder Law Clinic.  She was also an editorial board member of the Tennessee Journal of Practice and Procedure and a member of the Moot Court Board, Phi Delta Phi and the Christian Legal Society.  She is the District Seven Representative to the Young Lawyers Division of the Tennessee Bar Association and the secretary for her high school alumni association.