Staff
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Tom Gordon, Executive Director
Tom Gordon is one of the nation's leading experts on access to the legal system, small claims courts, and the unauthorized practice of law. He has testified many times before state legislatures, federal administrative panels, and the American Bar Association. Tom has worked on behalf of consumers of legal services for over a decade, including several years as Senior Counsel and Policy Director at HALT. He also brings valuable business knowledge to the organization from his time as a management consultant with the Corporate Executive Board. Tom received his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1995 and his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He is admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia. |
Board of Directors
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Ramón A. Abadin
Ramón Abadin is a partner and active trial lawyer in Ramon A. Abadin, P.A. He has tried more than 40 cases to verdict in both state and federal courts in Florida, where he has represented some of the world’s largest multinational corporations and insurance companies in complex commercial and tort matters. One of the most prominent members of the Florida legal community, Ray is a Past President of the Florida Bar. He is among the less than one percent of Florida attorneys invited to be a member of the selective American College of Trial Lawyers. He is also a member of the Florida Chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel and the International Association of Defense Counsel. He has received numerous awards, including the prestigious G. Kirk Haas Award from the Florida Bar, which is awarded annually to just one attorney in Florida. He is also past President of the Cuban American Bar Association. Ray has been actively involved in the selection of trial and appellate attorneys in state and federal courts, having served as one of only 15 committee members appointed to evaluate all prospective nominees to the federal bench in the 11th Circuit (Florida, Georgia and Alabama) and nationally. Mr. Abadin served on and was chairman of the Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and he has served on the City of Miami’s City Attorney Selection Committee. He was recently appointed to serve as a member of the Florida Supreme Court’s Long Range Strategic Planning Workgroup and is a member of the Court’s Commission on Access to Civil Justice. Ray earned his J.D. from Loyola University of New Orleans School of Law and his B.A. in History from Tulane University. |
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Goldie Heidi Gider
Heidi is the Senior Director of Development at Young Invincibles, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in DC, whose mission is to amplify the voices of young adults in the political process and expand economic opportunity. Prior to her work at YI, Heidi worked at Alliance for Justice as their Director of Development. A seasoned resource development professional, Heidi previously worked at the National Women's Health Network, Equal Rights Advocates in San Francisco, as well as the Society for Women’s Health Research and the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. She is a co-founder of a DC-based firm, The Rainmakers Group, which provides development services to small-to-mid-size nonprofit organizations. She has presented at the Bridge Conference, the Center for Nonprofit Success, Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and Merrill Lynch. |
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Richard S. Granat
Richard S. Granat is the Co-Chair of the eLawyering Task Force of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section and Founder/CEO of DirectLaw, Inc., a virtual law firm platform provider to solos and small law firms, and Founder/CEO of SmartLegalForms, Inc. Richard created the first virtual law firm in Maryland in 2003, which was the foundation for DirectLaw, Inc., and was the founder of The People’s Law Library of Maryland, a state-wide legal information resource for Maryland’s citizens. He also serves on the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services and is a Fellow in the College of Law Practice Management. Richard has been involved in developing innovative legal services delivery systems for over 30 years, first as part of the initial working group that created the National Legal Services Program, then as Director of the Center for Legal Studies at Antioch Law School in Washington, D.C., the nation's first clinical law school, and later as President and Dean of the Philadelphia Institute for Paralegal Training, the nation's first paralegal school. Richard was named a "Legal Rebel" by the American Bar Association Journal in 2009, and was awarded the Louis M. Brown Lifetime Achievement Award for Innovation in the Delivery of Legal Services in 2010. In 2013, he received the American Bar Association’s James Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering. |
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Josh King
From 2007 to 2018, Josh was the Chief Legal Officer for Avvo, the web’s largest and most heavily-trafficked consumer legal destination. At Avvo, he was responsible for Avvo's legal, government relations, and customer service functions, and spoke and advocated frequently on interactive media and professional ethics issues. Prior to joining Avvo in 2007, Josh spent over a decade in the wireless industry, in a mix of legal and non-legal roles including Vice President, Corporate Development at AT&T Wireless and General Counsel for Cellular One of San Francisco. Josh is a graduate of the University of California Hastings College of the Law and the University of Oregon. |
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Renee Knake
Renee Knake is a professor of law and the Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and the director of Outcomes and Assessments at the University of Houston Law School. A primary area of Professor Knake's scholarship addresses the intersection between the First Amendment and the regulation of lawyers. She is a co-author of the casebook Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach (West Publishing 2013). She was appointed as the Reporter for the American Bar Association Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services from 2014-16 and in 2017 she was elected to the prestigious American Law Institute. |
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Fritz Mulhauser
Fritz Mulhauser recently ended 22 years as staff attorney with the ACLU affiliate in Washington, DC, where he specialized in litigation and policy advocacy concerning police misconduct and law enforcement use of technology, as well as speech, assembly and due process rights of students. With years of experience using public records access tools as part of advocacy and litigation, he serves on the board of the DC Open Government Coalition, where he co-chairs the Legal Committee and blogs for their website on Freedom of Information, open meetings, and open data issues in the government of Washington, DC. As a board member of the DC Council for Court Excellence, Fritz has begun a project to make DC a leader in online access to court records. He has been active in advocating for access to justice reforms through the DC Bar Section on Courts, Lawyers & the Administration of Justice which he chaired for several terms. Fritz earlier worked on a committee staff in the House of Representatives, led evaluation and policy research at the GAO and served on the founding staff of the U.S. National Institute of Education in the executive branch. Fritz holds a BA from Harvard and a J.D. from Georgetown. |
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Chas Rampenthal
Chas Rampenthal has served as General Counsel of online legal document provider LegalZoom since 2003. Before joining LegalZoom, he was a partner at Belanger and Rampenthal, LLC, and an associate at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, LLP of Boston, Massachusetts and the Los Angeles office of Thelen Reid & Priest LLP. Chas also served as an officer and aviator in the United States Navy. He is the former host of "Legally Bound," a weekly legal call-in advice talk show in Los Angeles. He received a B.S. in Economics and Math Studies from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a J.D. from the University of Southern California. |