Contributors

We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals, who have contributed to the Manual and its recent updates.

Jeffrey S. Gutman, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University Law School, coordinated and managed recent updates to  the Federal Practice Manual. Prior to coming to the Law School in 1994, Professor Gutman served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch, Civil Division, Department of Justice. His work at Justice principally involved representing the federal government in constitutional and administrative challenges to federal statutes and regulations in federal courts throughout the country. Among the cases he litigated were challenges to the military base closing statute, firearms control legislation and regulations, legislation governing the receipt of honoraria by federal employees, the savings and loan reform statutes, and private meetings of government advisers. Professor Gutman directs the Public Justice Advocacy Clinic, teaches Civil Procedure, and has served as associate dean for academic affairs from 2000 to 2008. His clinical work principally focuses on wage and hour cases, unemployment compensation, Freedom of Information Act cases, and disability discrimination litigation.

Gregory Bass is a Senior Attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice in New York, currently focused on disability rights. Prior to joining NCLEJ, Greg served as Litigation Director at Greater Hartford Legal Aid for more than 16 years. Greg’s legal career of over 33 years has been devoted to serving as an attorney and managing attorney with legal services programs in Alabama, Washington, California, and Connecticut, advocating in court as well as administrative and judicial forums. Greg has litigated a number of individual and class actions in state and federal court across a range of legal areas, including Medicaid, housing, public benefits, consumer, employment, seniors, and civil rights. Examples include a class action that culminated in an $80 million settlement that vastly improved dental access for children in the Medicaid program. He litigated a class action under the Americans with Disabilities Act that resulted in a $25 million settlement that restructured welfare agency policies, regulations, notices, and staff hiring and training to comply with the ADA.

Anne Louise Blanchard is the Litigation Director at Connecticut Legal Services. Anne Louise practices in state and federal court on individual and systemic cases. She has been lead or co-counsel in a variety of class actions, involving the provision of special education by the state’s juvenile justice system, the provision of mental health services by the state’s child welfare agency, and access to dental care overseen by the state’s social service agency. Anne Louise was a member of Connecticut’s legislative committee studying open juvenile courts and is currently appointed by Connecticut’s senators to their Federal Advisory Council, which screens and recommends candidates for federal judges and the U.S. attorney position in Connecticut.

Rochelle Bobroffis the Senior Attorney for Systemic Reform at AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly (LCE).  Rochelle develops, places with law firms, monitors progress, and reviews products of pro bono systemic reform projects. These pro bono projects include research into constitutional law questions, analysis of issues for potential class action litigation, and development of new proposals for changes in Washington, D.C. law. Rochelle supports LCE staff with systemic issues arising in individual cases. She supervises LCE’s Schedule H Project, which uses volunteers and law students to assist low-income seniors applying for the D.C. property tax credit available to both home owners and renters. Previously, Rochelle was the Director of the Court Access Project at the Constitutional Accountability Project, the Directing Attorney of the Federal Rights Project at the National Senior Citizens Law Center, and a Senior Attorney at AARP Foundation Litigation. Rochelle has written numerous articles and conducted many trainings on systemic solutions to legal problems. Rochelle is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Chicago.

Robert P. Capistrano began his legal services career in 1976 as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) lawyer with San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation. The foundation has since merged with other programs to form Bay Area Legal Aid, where Bob is now Director of Advocacy and Managing Attorney. A reliable author of Clearinghouse Review articles (see Robert P. Capistrano, Making the Fair Hearing More Fair, 44 Clearinghouse Review 96 (July–Aug. 2010), for his most recent contribution), Bob was on the faculty for Affirmative Litigation Training, one of the Shriver Center’s training programs.

Cassandra Capobianco is an attorney with the Florida Institutional Legal Services (FILS) Project of Florida Legal Services. Ms. Capobianco has litigated in administrative, state, federal, and international fora. Examples of her advocacy include a challenge to the Florida state prison system’s use of chemical agents against mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement, which resulted in a ground-breaking favorable Eleventh Circuit ruling.  She has brought successful cases challenging the care provided to transgender inmates in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Florida state prison system.  She has litigated and advocated extensively on behalf of mentally ill adults and children, with a focus on prohibiting extended solitary confinement and guaranteeing humane treatment.  Ms. Capobianco also litigates wrongful death cases on behalf of prisoner families, access to medical/mental health care claims, and ADA claims. She has trained nationwide on trial skills, class action and impact litigation, rights of transgender prisoners, and prisoners’ rights. Ms. Capobianco began her career with FILS as an Equal Justice Works fellow. Ms. Capobianco graduated with honors from the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. in 2002.

Kirsten Clanton is an attorney with Southern Legal Counsel, a statewide nonprofit public interest law firm in Florida dedicated to the ideal of equal justice for all and the attainment of basic civil and human rights. SLC primarily assists individuals and groups with public interest issues who otherwise would not have access to the justice system and whose cases may bring about systemic reform. Ms. Clanton directs SLC’s Homeless Advocacy Project, a statewide project to protect and defend the civil and human rights of homeless individuals and their advocates. She is a member of the Florida Bar, and the bars of the U.S. Middle, Southern, and Northern District Courts of Florida and the Court of Appeals for the Second and Eleventh Circuits. She has litigated cases across a variety of judicial forums involving the constitutional and statutory rights of low-income individuals. She is a past chair of the Public Interest Law Section of the Florida Bar and current chair of the section’s Committee on Homelessness. Ms. Clanton received her J.D. with honors (2005); M.A. in Latin American Studies (2005); and B.A. in Spanish with honors (2001), all from the University of Florida. Prior to joining SLC in January 2007, she worked at a private law firm specializing in immigration and nationality law.

Gill Deford is the Director of Litigation at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Mr. Deford was a staff attorney for eighteen years with the National Senior Citizens Law Center in Los Angeles, specializing in health law, public pensions, ERISA, and SSI. He was later the director of a Massachusetts agency providing legal assistance to people with mental disabilities and a staff attorney with the health law team at AARP Foundation Litigation in Washington, D.C.  Since 1999 he has been with the Connecticut office of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, where his work focuses on systemic improvements to Medicare through federal court litigation. His law degree is from the University of Virginia and his Bachelor’s Degree is from Harvard University.

Joel D. Ferber is the Director of Advocacy for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. Joel has litigated Medicaid and other public benefits cases in the United States District Courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was one of the lead attorneys representing Missouri consumer groups in the settlement of a lawsuit involving the reorganization of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri, a settlement that established the Missouri Foundation for Health, the largest health care foundation in the state of Missouri. Joel has presented at numerous state and national conferences regarding litigation, Medicaid, public benefits, and low-income health issues and has written extensively on these and other subjects in Clearinghouse Review, the St. Louis University Law Journal, and elsewhere. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and New York University School of Law, Joel is a father of 20-year-old twins, an avid fan of the New York Giants and the Missouri Tigers, and a lover of ethnic food and music.

Katherine Greenberg is a Staff Attorney at The Legal Aid Society’s Employment Law Unit, where she represents low-wage workers in a wide variety of employment matters, including discrimination, Family and Medical Leave Act, wage and hour, and unemployment benefits claims. She is an adjunct professor at New York Law School, where she co-teaches a clinical course on the intersection of health and employment law in a civil legal services practice. Katherine previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable James C. Francis IV of the Southern District of New York.  She received her B.A. from Vassar College and her J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Alice K. Nelson is a senior attorney at Southern Legal Counsel where she has practiced since 1988. She was Executive Director from 1988-2004. She is the Lead Trainer for the Shriver Center’s Affirmative Litigation Training program. In 2009-10 she was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Ankara Law School teaching a graduate seminar on the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Ms. Nelson is the Past Chair for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and previously chaired its Amicus Committee. She is a member of The Florida Bar Public Interest Law Section and served as chair of The Florida Bar’s Disability Law Committee from 1983-85. For eight years prior to coming to SLC, she was in private practice specializing in plaintiffs’ employment law, special education issues, guardianship, and general civil rights. At SLC, she has litigated on behalf of adults with developmental disabilities and severe mental illness, on behalf of children with special needs for special education, and general civil rights. Ms. Nelson received her B.A. from City College of New York in 1965, an M.S.W. from the University of Georgia in 1967, and a J.D. from Stetson College of Law in 1976. She has worked for the Developmental Disabilities Law Project at the University of Maryland and Bay Area Legal Services in Tampa, Florida. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas A. Clark when he was on the old Fifth Circuit (now the Eleventh Circuit). 

Jane Perkins is the Legal Director at the National Health Law Program, a public interest law firm working to protect the legal rights of low-income and underserved people. Previously, she was an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Maryland, assigned to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Ms. Perkins focuses on public insurance programs, maternal and child health, federal court access, and disability and civil rights. She has litigated numerous cases under the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act. Ms. Perkins earned an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley; her JD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and a BA from Davidson College. She is admitted to the state bars of California, Maryland, and North Carolina, nine of the federal circuit courts of appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kent Qian of the National Housing Law Project is the Project Leader of the Homeowner Bill of Rights Collaborative. He has been a leading national advocate for improving protections of low-income homeowners and tenants in the ongoing foreclosure crisis. He assisted federal policymakers on the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act and has provided extensive assistance and litigation support to attorneys throughout the state and the country on federal and California-specific foreclosure laws, loan modification policies, and foreclosure recovery-related legislation.

Laurence M. (Lonny) Rose is Professor Emeritus and Director of the Litigation Skills Program at the University of Miami School of Law. An Academic Fellow of the International Society of Barristers, he received the 2012 Robert B. McKay Law Professor of the Year Award from the American Bar Association, the 1998 Richard S. Jacobson Award for Excellence in Teaching Trial Advocacy by the Roscoe Pound Foundation, the 1998 Robert S. Oliphant Service to NITA Award, and the 1995 NITA Distinguished Service Award. He has lectured and taught in more than 350 programs throughout the world, including Japan, Mexico, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Greece, Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England, and for bar associations such as the ABA, ATLA/AAJ, IBA, ABOTA, and ACTL. After serving in many capacities within the organization, Lonny was named NITA’s first President/CEO and served from 2006-2010. He has been a Professor of Law at the University of Miami since 1990, after having served as Professor of Law at the University of Kansas (1976-1990). The author of more than 100 presentations, articles, and texts on advocacy, he has testified in state and federal matters on advocacy standards and consults regularly on advocacy for trial counsel. A graduate of Stony Brook University and New York University School of Law, Lonny began his legal career serving as a law clerk to Chief Judge James S. Holden of the U.S. District Court of Vermont and then was in private practice in Vermont and Kansas.

Richard Rothschild is the Director of Litigation at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. He focuses on welfare and other benefits issues, access to courts issues, and is an expert on attorneys fees case law and litigation. Mr. Rothschild served as principal counsel in Serrano v. Priest, the landmark school financing case, Hunt v. Superior Court, where the California Supreme Court held that counties must provide health care to all indigent residents, Nelson v. Board of Supervisors, which held that a county may not prevent homeless people from receiving subsistence General Assistance payments on the ground they lack a valid residential address, and Gardner v. Los Angeles, which invalidated Los Angeles County’s attempt to reduce General Assistance cash payments to offset the alleged value of health care provided by the county and led to a $60 million settlement for GA recipients. He graduated second in his class in 1975 from the University of Southern California Law School where he was a law review editor and a member of the Order of the Coif. He was a law clerk for California Supreme Court Associate Justice Stanley Mosk before joining the Center as a staff attorney in 1976.

Peter Sleasman is an attorney with Florida Institutional Legal Services (FILS), a nonprofit public interest law firm protecting the rights of persons confined in state and federal institutions in Florida. For over 30 years he has practiced civil rights litigation, class action litigation, and institutional reform litigation in state and federal courts. Prior to his work with FILS, he was the Advocacy Director of the Legal Advocacy Center of Central Florida, Inc., in Ocala and an attorney for Southern Legal Counsel in Gainesville. He received his J.D. from the University of Florida and his B.A. from Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. He is a member of the Florida Bar, United States District Court for the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Florida, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He is a member of the Public Interest Law Section of the Florida Bar and a past chair of the Disability Law Committee. He has spoken in his areas of expertise — federal civil rights litigation and disability law — in numerous legal services trainings and seminars.

Sarah Somers is Managing Attorney of the National Health Law Program’s (NHeLP) North Carolina office. She specializes in litigation and litigation support intended to advance access to quality health care for low income and other underserved people. Working with health and poverty law advocates across the country, she engages in litigation, research, writing, and training on the Medicaid program, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Affordable Care Act, among other issues. She has represented clients in numerous state and federal courts, including the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits. Her publications include A North Carolina Advocate’s Guide to the Medicaid Program (2006); Health Care Reform for Native Americans: The Long-Awaited Permanent Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, 44 J. Pov. Law & Policy 365 (Nov-Dec. 2010); The Affordable Care Act:  A Giant Step Toward Insurance Coverage for All Americans, 44 J. Pov. L. & Policy 330 (Nov.-Dec. 2010) (co-author). She is also a co-author of An Advocates Guide to the Medicaid Program (May 2011).  Before coming to NHeLP, she worked for the Native American Protection and Advocacy Project on the Navajo Nation, where she represented children in special education and Medicaid cases. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.


We also recognize those who contributed to the Federal Practice Manual‘s 2d edition, which was published in 2004. The work of these editors and reviewers forms the basis of today’s Manual.

Kenneth J. Barnes, Greg Bass, Robert P. Capistrano, Aaron Cooper, Gill Deford, Charles Delbaum, William H. Fraser, Douglas E. Gershuny, Jeffrey S. Gutman, Steve Hitov, Douglas Johnson, Thomas H. Kelley, Michael R. Masinter, Alice K. Nelson, Jane Perkins, J. Paterson Rae, Richard A. Rothschild, Herbert Semmel, Susan Ann Silverstein, Peter P. Sleasman, Gary F. Smith, Abigail Turner, Shelley A. White, Peyton Whiteley, Cynthia Works