Staff
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Tom Gordon, Executive Director
Tom co-founded Responsive Law in 2010 and has been serving as its Executive Director since 2012. He has worked on behalf of consumers of legal services for over two decades, including several years as Senior Counsel and Policy Director at HALT. He has testified hundreds of times before state legislatures, federal administrative panels, state bars, and the American Bar Association. His commentary has been featured in national media, including the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, In 2017, Tom was named to the Fastcase 50 as one of "the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Tom received his JD from Northwestern University School of Law and his BA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is admitted to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia. |
Board of Directors
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Deno Himonas, President
Constandinos "Deno" Himonas was a justice of the Utah Supreme Court from 2015 to 2022, when he stepped down to join the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. As a justice, he led the Court’s establishment of the nation's first regulatory sandbox for legal service providers, which allows innovative business models for legal service delivery to serve consumers. Among his accolades, Deno has been named a "Legal Rebel" by the American Bar Association and has received the Judicial Excellence award from the Utah State Bar, and the Rebuilding Justice Award from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. Before his appointment to the Utah Supreme Court, Deno served as a trial court judge for 11 years and a litigator in private practice for 15 years. He received his JD from the University of Chicago and his BA from the University of Utah. |
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Sara Akbar
Sara Akbar is a seasoned government affairs professional with over a decade of experience advocating for the tech industry. She is currently the head of Global Government Affairs and Public Affairs for Interos, an AI Supply Chain Risk Management Company. She was Director of Government Relations for Oracle, covering a range of public policy issues from education, workforce and immigration to procurement. Prior to her work as a tech advocate, she was a contract and business development specialist for information technology firms. Ms. Akbar is a Washington, DC area native. She earned a BA in International Relations from American University and a MA in Public Policy from the University of Maryland. She also sits on the board of the Women’s High-Tech Coalition and the Emergent Leaders Network. |
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Steve Crossland
Steve Crossland has been practicing law as a small-town sole practitioner for nearly 50 years. He is a 1969 graduate of Stanford University with a degree in Political Science. Lewis and Clark College, Northwestern School of Law in Oregon conferred a JD in 1973. The Washington State Supreme Court appointed Steve to Chair the Limited License Legal Technician Board in December 2012. Steve was President of the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) in 2011 and also served on the WSBA Board of Governors from 1995-1998. In 2002 he received the Award of Merit from the WSBA, which is the highest award conferred upon a lawyer in the association. Evolving over the years, his practice now focuses on real estate, estate planning and business law. Over the past 30 years, he has served on a variety of boards, committees and task forces dealing with the unauthorized practice of law, access to justice, succession planning and related subjects |
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Sonja Ebron
Sonja Ebron is chief executive and cofounder at Courtroom5, an automated legal toolbox for pro se civil litigants handling complex claims. She is a PhD electrical engineer and former college professor with a background in utilities and artificial intelligence. Sonja has represented herself in court many times and has made it a personal mission to empower others in their pro se litigation experiences. She serves on the Leaders Council of the Legal Services Corporation, the nation's primary funding source for legal aid programs. 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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Fritz Mulhauser
Fritz Mulhauser was a staff attorney for 22 years 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 JD from Georgetown. |
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Chas Rampenthal
Chas Rampenthal served as General Counsel and Head of Industry Relations at online legal document provider LegalZoom from 2003 to 2021. 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. |
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Daniel B. Rodriguez
Daniel B. Rodriguez is the Harold Washington Professor at Northwestern University and served as dean of the Law School from January 2012 through August 2018. During the 2018-19 academic year, he was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and the Louis Brandeis visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School. Professor Rodriguez has taught full-time at a number of law schools including, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of San Diego (where he also served as dean), and at the University of California, Berkeley. His scholarship and teaching spans a wide range of topics in public law, including administrative law, local government law, constitutional law, and property. He is also deeply interested in the law-business-technology interface. A graduate of California State University Long Beach and Harvard Law School, Professor Rodriguez has served as the Chair of the ABA Center for Innovation, the President of the Association of American Law Schools, and a council member of the American Law Institute. |