Doing Good: These Law School Alumni Are Making a Difference in the Nonprofit World

Learn about 15 alumni of the University of Virginia School of Law who are leaders in the nonprofit world.

Richard Boskey (Class of 1982)

Boston

• Senior vice president, general counsel and chief governance officer of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a not-for-profit hospital and research organization affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
• Oversees a team of eight attorneys who handle a broad array of issues, including health care, intellectual property, biomedical research, patient care, faculty and medical staff, employment and labor, business transactions, real estate, nonprofit corporation, and litigation and compliance.
• Former deputy general counsel at Partners HealthCare and Massachusetts General Hospital, and an associate at Hill & Barlow.

Mark Bromley (Class of 1995)

Washington, D.C.

• Helped launch the Council for Global Equality, a human rights coalition that seeks stronger and more consistent support for the rights of LGBT people globally.
• Focuses on building deeper bipartisan support for global LGBT programs.
• Bromley worked closely with Obama administration officials to chart an LGBT-inclusive human rights policy. He also worked closely with U.S. embassies and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff to affirm that LGBT rights are, in fact, human rights.
• Co-teaches the International Human Rights Clinic at UVA Law.

Claire Blumenson (Class of 2011)

Washington, D.C.

• Executive director and co-founder of School Justice Project, a nonprofit organization that provides special-education legal services to older court-involved students with disabilities. The project intervenes at the “deep end” of the school-to-prison pipeline, working with students ages 18 to 22.
• School Justice Project has been recognized through the following: 2013 Echoing Green/Open Society Foundation’s Black Male Achievement Fellowship, 2014 Teach for America Social Innovation Award, 2015 Leadership for Educational Equity Venture Fund & Fellowship, The Aspen Institute’s D.C. Urban Innovation Lab and the 2016-17 Catalogue for Philanthropy.
• Prior to launching School Justice Project, Blumenson spent two years at the Washington, D.C. Public Defender Service as a 2011 Equal Justice Works Fellow, working as a special education attorney inside the district’s secure juvenile facility.

David W. Carr Jr. (Class of 1983)

Charlottesville

• General counsel at the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit that uses the power of the law to champion the environment of the Southeast.
• Clean-energy advocate helps lead the effort to shape renewable energy policy by documenting and sharing the adverse climate and forest impacts of burning wood from southern U.S. forests to generate electricity in Europe.
• Leads advocacy campaigns for the development of utility-scale offshore wind power off of Virginia and the South Atlantic coast.
• Carr is the former longtime leader of the center’s National Forests and Parks Program.
• A lecturer at UVA Law, Carr has taught “Federal Lands, Energy and Natural Resources” for more than 20 years.

Simon Cataldo (Class of 2014)

Washington, D.C.

• Co-founder and president of the board of directors at Harlem Lacrosse, an academic intervention program for at-risk youth that provides academic support, mentoring, leadership training, college readiness, career exploration, admissions counseling and lacrosse instruction.
• Cataldo, who turned the program into a nonprofit organization months before he became a student at UVA Law, now has 25 full-time employees and operates in middle and high schools in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
• Harlem Lacrosse students have earned more than $23 million in academic scholarships since 2011.
• By day, Cataldo is a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.

Richard Cohen (Class of 1979)

Montgomery, Alabama

• President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that fights hate and bigotry, and seeks justice for the most vulnerable members of society through litigation, education and other forms of advocacy.
• Successfully litigated a wide variety of important civil rights actions, including defending the rights of prisoners to be treated humanely, working for equal educational opportunities for children, and bringing down the Confederate battle flag from the Alabama State Capitol.
• In 1999, he was a finalist for the national Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for his work on Macedonia Baptist Church v. Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a lawsuit that ended with a record $37.8 million judgment against a Klan group for its role in burning a South Carolina church.
• Previously served as the center’s legal director and vice president for programs.

Larry Foust (Class of 1978, LL.M. 1980)

Dallas

• Executive vice president, general counsel and chief legal officer of Children’s Health System of Texas, a not-for-profit health maintenance organization and an academic medical center affiliated with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
• Former general counsel for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, senior counsel for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and associate general counsel for the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.
• Former chair of the claims committee and member of the executive committee of Beta Healthcare Group, a California joint powers authority and largest underwriter of nonprofit and governmental hospital liability coverage in California.
• Former partner for 10 years at Jenkens & Gilchrist, representing the health care industry.

Jane E. Genster (Class of 1976)

Washington, D.C.

• Retired president and CEO, and continuing board member of Cristo Rey Network, a national network of 32 Catholic inner-city high schools that integrate rigorous academic preparation with four years of real-world work experience to prepare students from economically disadvantaged families for college.
• Former vice president and general counsel at Georgetown University, with extensive experience in the fields of education and nonprofit governance.
• Genster practiced law with Williams & Connolly, held in-house legal positions with NBC and The Washington Post, and taught as adjunct professor at UVA Law and Georgetown Law Center.

Howard H. Hoege III (Class of 2002)

Newport News

• President and CEO of The Mariners’ Museum and Park, home to the world’s largest archaeological maritime metals conservation project and the remains of the USS Monitor.
• Congress designated the institution “America’s National Maritime Museum.”
• Campus includes more than 92,000 square feet of galleries, a 575-acre park and the 167-acre Lake Maury.

Michele Keenan (Class of 1987)

Washington, D.C.

• President and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving equal opportunity and civil rights in the mass media, telecommunications and broadband industries.
• Recognized as the nation’s leading advocate for minority advancement in communications, the council holds the annual Capital Pitch Competition for startups and the College Tech Prep Summit to introduce students to careers in the digital economy.
• Serves on the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee.
• Recipient of the National Bar Association’s 2017 Gertrude Rush Award for pioneering achievement in the law.
• Former general counsel and secretary of the NAACP.

Jeffrey S. Kerr (Class of 1987)

Washington, D.C.

• General counsel and senior vice president of corporate affairs, PETA Foundation, where he has worked for fundamental legal protection for animal rights in the world for more than two decades.
• Recently received the prestigious Legal Department of the Year 2017 award from Corporate Counsel magazine, the second nonprofit and the first animal protection organization to be honored in the history of the award.
• Brought the first case seeking constitutional rights for animals arguing that SeaWorld enslaves orcas in violation of the 13th Amendment.
• Kerr also served on the board of directors of the ACLU of Virginia for 10 years, the last two as president of the affiliate.

Tim Phillips (Class of 1997)

Marietta, Georgia

• General counsel and assistant secretary of the American Cancer Society Inc., and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network. Leads a team to develop, implement and maintain legal and risk-management strategies that protect the society’s interests and advance its life-saving mission globally.
• Lectures on topics related to nonprofit governance, taxation, risk management and joint ventures, and engages with the community on a variety of volunteer service levels.
• Phillips has received numerous honors for his service, including the H. Sol Clark Award, the State Bar of Georgia’s highest honor for pro bono service. He serves on the boards of several veteran service organizations in an advisory capacity and is counsel to the Navy SEAL Foundation.
• Served as a commissioned officer in the Naval Special Warfare Command.

India Pinkney (Class of 1998)

Washington, D.C.

• General counsel of the National Endowment for the Arts, an independent federal agency that funds, promotes and strengthens the creative capacity of communities by providing Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation through grants funding to eligible 501(3) organizations throughout the United States.
• Heads the legal department and is responsible for the legal affairs and ethics compliance of the organization. Provides legal counsel to the chairman of the NEA, the National Council on the Arts, and senior management.
• Recently named to the board of directors of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts.
• Formerly an international attorney at the Federal Aviation Administration, advising countries worldwide on implementation of international aviation standards and laws and serving as lead counsel for the Safe Skies for Africa Program. In 2005, she was the first U.S. attorney to serve in the Legal Bureau of the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization. Prior to that, she was an attorney at Baker & Hostetler.

Katie Redford (Class of 1995)

Washington, D.C.

• Co-founder and director of EarthRights International, a nonprofit organization that defends human rights and the environment.
• Developed and led precedent-setting litigation to hold corporations accountable for complicity in human rights abuses such as torture, forced labor, rape and crimes against humanity.
• Redford has published on human rights and corporate accountability, and been profiled in the media, including in books such as “Be Bold” and “Your America: Democracy’s Local Heroes,” and the award-winning documentary film, “Total Denial.” In 2006, she was selected as an Ashoka Global Fellow.
• Redford has taught as a lecturer at UVA Law and the Washington College of Law at American University, and serves on the board of directors of various nonprofit organizations and foundations.