Partial Listing of NCLC Staff

Advocacy Staff

Carolyn L. Carter is an attorney specializing in consumer law issues for over 25 years. She is Deputy Director for Advocacy for NCLC and a contributor to NCLC’s manuals. Prior to assuming her current title in the fall of 2005, she was of-counsel to NCLC and authored or contributed to NCLC’s publications, including Consumer Warranty Law, Truth In Lending, Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices, The Cost of Credit, and Repossessions and Foreclosures.

She is also the principal author of Ohio and Pennsylvania consumer law treatises. From 1974 to 1986 she worked for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, first as a staff attorney and later as law reform director. From 1986 to 1999 she was co-director of a legal services program in Pennsylvania. She was the 1992 recipient of NCLC’s Vern Countryman Award. She is also admitted to the Pennsylvania bar.

Alys Cohen is a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center’s Washington office, where she focuses on homeownership and other low-income consumer credit issues. She is a contributing author of the Cost of Credit and Truth in Lending manuals, provides training on consumer law to attorneys and other advocates, and participates in NCLC’s advocacy efforts.

Prior to joining the NCLC staff, Alys worked for five years as an attorney in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Financial Practices, where she specialized in credit discrimination and high-cost lending issues. She conducted investigations and litigation involving regional and national lenders, wrote congressional testimony and regulatory comments, and trained advocates and regulators on federal credit law. As a volunteer, she has organized trainings on personal finance for formerly-homeless women in Washington.

Alys is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the State University of New York at Binghamton. She is also admitted to the New York bar.

Charles Delbaum is a staff attorney focusing on class action litigation.  Prior to joining NCLC , he was the Director of Litigation and Advocacy at New Orleans Legal Assistance for thirteen years.  He also supervised the Tulane Law School consumer/foreclosure clinic, co-authored a chapter on Louisiana Consumer Law for the 2001 and 2005 Louisiana Legal Services Desk books, and presented on consumer and other Louisiana topics at numerous CLEs. From 2000-20005, he was a member of the Louisiana State Bar Ethics Advisory and Access to Justice Committees.  In 2000, he was the recipient of the Louisiana State Bar Association Pro Bono Publico Career Service Award.

Prior to his work in New Orleans, Charles was a federal law clerk in Pennsylvania, a staff attorney in the law reform division of the Cleveland Legal Aid Society, and a private practitioner with other former Legal Aid attorneys in Cleveland, Ohio.  In the latter two positions, he specialized in nursing home patient rights, and was president of the board of the Cleveland area Nursing Home Ombudsman program for twelve years.

A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Charles is admitted to the bars of Massachusetts, Louisiana and Ohio (inactive status).

Charlie Harak focuses on energy and utility issues at NCLC. Charlie's background includes 17 years with Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, a state-support center for legal services where he addressed a broad range of energy, utility and housing issues; three years at the Massachusetts Attorney General, in the Regulated Industries Division; and, most recently three years at Bernstein, Cushner & Kimmell, P.C., a small Boston firm specializing in energy, utilities, and environmental law and litigation.

Charlie's connection to NCLC dates back to 1980 when he filed a successful suit challenging Massachusetts failure to release its energy assistance funds, based on model pleading drafted by NCLC. Throughout his career at MLRI, he worked with NCLC on various utility issues. 

Charlie is the author of a consumer-oriented utilities manual, The Right to Light (and heat) Handbook, and co-author and editor of Legal Tactics, a handbook on landlord-tenant issues. He serves as the President of the Board of Tri-CAP. He is also admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

In 2003, Charlie was given the President's Self-Sufficiency Award by the Massachusetts Community Action Program Directors Association for his more than 20 years of work on behalf of low-income energy consumers.

Robert J. Hobbs is deputy director of National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), having served as a staff attorney from 1972 to 1987. He specializes fair debt collection law, writing Fair Debt Collection and NCLC REPORTS, Debt Collection and Repossession, oversees NCLC’s annual Consumer Rights Litigation Conference, edits Consumer Law Pleadings on CD-Rom each year, and coauthored NCLC’s new book, The Practice of Consumer Law, Seeking Economic Justice. Bob was the Treasurer of the National Association of Consumer Advocates and a former member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council. He has participated in FTC rulemaking and testified before Congress on fair debt collection, Truth in Lending, and the FTC Holder Rule. Before joining NCLC, Bob represented consumers at the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation.

John Howat specializes in energy and telecommunications at NCLC.  Prior to joining the Center John was a consultant and technical analyst on regulatory, legislative, and communications services to energy consumers and other utility entities. He served as research director of the Massachusetts Joint Legislative Committee on Energy, economist with the Electric Power Division of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy, director of  the Association of Massachusetts Local Energy Officials, and executive director of the Competitive Power Coalition of New England. 

John has a B.A. from Evergreen State College and an M.A. from Tufts University in Urban and Environment Policy.

Deanne Loonin is a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center and the Director of NCLC’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. She focuses on consumer credit issues generally and more specifically on student loan, credit counseling, and credit discrimination. She is the co-author of numerous publications and reports including NCLC's publications, Student Loan Law and Guide to Surviving Debt.

Prior to coming to NCLC, Deanne worked as a legal aid attorney in Los Angeles. Deanne received her B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her J.D. from University of California-Berkeley. She is a member of the California and Massachusetts bars.

Willard P. Ogburn is executive director of NCLC, having previously served as staff attorney and as deputy director. He has provided expert testimony and administrative representation on a wide variety of consumer law and policy issues before a range of Congressional and regulatory committees on the national and state levels.

Will has also served as deputy commissioner for consumer credit with the Massachusetts Banking Commission, as an analyst with the Bureau of the Budget, in Cleveland Legal Aid’s law reform unit, as a member and Chair of the Federal Reserve Board Consumer Advisory Council; and on the Board of Directors of the Consumer Federation of America. Will holds a B.A. from Brown University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and has been awarded the National Association of Consumer Advocates’ Lifetime Achievement Award and the William J. Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award by the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

John Rao is an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, Inc. Mr. Rao focuses on consumer credit and bankruptcy issues and has served as a panelist and instructor at numerous bankruptcy and consumer law trainings and conferences. He is a contributing author and editor of NCLC's Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice; co-author of NCLC’s Foreclosures and Guide to Surviving Debt; and contributing author to NCLC’s Student Loan Law, Stop Predatory Lending, and NCLC Reports: Bankruptcy and Foreclosures Edition. He is also a contributing author to Collier on Bankruptcy and the Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide. Mr. Rao serves as a member of the federal Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2006. He is a member of the board of directors for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Mr. Rao is a graduate of Boston University and received his J.D. in 1982 from the University of California (Hastings).

Elizabeth A. Renuart is an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center in its Boston, MA office. She focuses on predatory lending, Truth in Lending, consumer credit issues, and sustainable homeownership issues. She co-authors two of NCLC’s treatises, Truth In Lending and The Cost of Credit: Regulation and Legal Challenges and one of NCLC Reports, Credit & Usury. She is the principal author of the new Stop Predatory Lending: A Guide for Legal Advocates. Ms. Renuart advocates on behalf of low-income consumers before the Federal Reserve Board, HUD, and other federal agencies through testimony and written comments to proposed regulatory changes. She teaches consumer law to legal services, private and government attorneys, and other advocates around the country. She was a member of the Consumer Advisory Council to the Federal Reserve Board from 2000-2003.

Prior to coming to NCLC in 1996, Elizabeth was the managing attorney of a legal services program in Baltimore, MD that provided representation to homeowners in danger of losing their homes. She has been a legal services attorney since 1977. She is also admitted to the Maryland bar.

Stuart Rossman is an NCLC staff attorney directing the Center’s litigation efforts. He is an experienced trial attorney who, after 13 years of private practice, served as chief of the Trial Division and chief of the Business and Labor Protection Bureau (consisting of the Fair Labor and Business Practices Division, the Insurance Fraud Division, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Unemployment Fraud Division) at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. He also founded and chaired the Attorney General’s Abandoned Housing Task Force, a project created to assist municipalities and community groups in seeking solutions to abandoned properties.

Stuart is the former chairman of the Volunteer Lawyers Project, the oldest and largest pro bono legal services program in Massachusetts, and continue to serve on its Board of Directors. He is a member of the adjunct faculty of the Northeastern University School of Law where he has taught Civil Trial Advocacy since 1993. Stuart is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School. He is also admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

Lauren Saunders joined NCLC in 2006 as the Managing Attorney of the Center’s Washington, DC Office. She comes from the National Senior Citizens Law Center, where she handled litigation and legislative efforts to preserve the enforceability of laws protecting the health, financial security and civil rights of individuals. Prior to joining NSCLC, Lauren spent nine years at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, initially as director of the housing conditions program and later as Deputy Director of Litigation. She developed innovative litigation strategies to address slum housing and spearheaded the writing of Los Angeles’s new Housing Code.

Lauren began her career litigating consumer, environmental, and government fraud cases at the public interest firm Hall & Phillips. Lauren clerked for Judge Harry Edwards of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and is a 1988 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where she served as Executive Editor of the Law Review. She also holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Margot Saunders is currently “of counsel” to the National Consumer Law Center, after serving as Managing Attorney of the Center’s Washington
office from 1991 to 2005. Margot represents the interests of the Center’s low-income clients in Congress on a range of consumer law matters, including predatory lending, payments law, electronic commerce, and other financial credit issues. She has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to Congressional committees and federal agencies about the impact on low-income households of pending proposals. Additionally, Margot serves as an expert witness in consumer credit cases, specializing in credit math analysis and predatory lending issues.

Margot was a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, where she co-chaired the Consumer Credit Committee throughout her tenure, and the American Water Works Association Public Advisory Forum. She is co-author of a number of books, including the original and revised editions of Consumer Banking and Payments Law (upcoming NCLC 2005), the original and the revised editions of Access to Utility Service
(NCLC 2001 and 1996), Energy and the Poor: The Crisis Continues (NCLC 1995), Tenants' Rights to Utility Service (1994), and The Manual on Water Affordability Programs (AWWA, 1998), as well as a numerous articles on consumer and utilities laws as they affect low income people in the United States.

Prior to coming to D.C. in September 1991, Margot was the consumer specialist for North Carolina Legal Services, where she represented low-income clients before the state legislature, the appellate courts, and administrative agencies. In May 1991, she was the recipient of the Vern Countryman Award, a national award recognizing attorneys for outstanding advocacy on behalf of low income consumers.

She is a graduate of Brandeis University and the University of North Carolina School of Law. She is also admitted to the North Carolina bar.

Jon Sheldon has been a staff attorney with NCLC for over 23 years. Jon specializes in state unfair and deceptive trade practices statutes, automobile leasing, repossessions and secured transactions, automobile fraud, and is very much involved in the production and editing of NCLC consumer law manuals.

Prior to joining NCLC, he was a staff attorney with in the Division of Special Projects within the Bureau of Consumer Protection in Washington, DC. Jon is a graduate of Harvard College (1970) as well as Harvard Law School (1973). He is also admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

John W. Van Alst joined NCLC in 2006 as a Staff Attorney at the Center’s Washington, DC Office.  Prior to joining NCLC John work for seven years as an Attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina.  While at Legal Aid he focused primarily on consumer issues.  He was also the Chair of the North Carolina Consumer Law Task Force.  He spent one year as a Visiting Clinical Supervisor at the University of North Carolina School of Law’s Civil Clinical Program supervising law students representing low-income clients. 

John is a 1998 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Odette Williamson has been a  staff attorney at NCLC since July, 1999.  Prior to this she was an Assistant Attorney General in the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General where she concentrated on civil enforcement actions against individuals and businesses for violation of consumer protection and other laws.  As an AAG she also served on the Elder Law Advocates Strike Force to combat unfair and deceptive acts against elderly citizens.

Odette is a board member of Homeowner Options for Massachusetts Elders. She attended Tufts University and Boston College Law School where she was a staff writer and editor for the Uniform Commercial Code Reporter-Digest. She is also admitted to the Massachusetts bar.

Olivia B. Wein has been a staff attorney in the Washington office of the National Consumer Law Center since December 1999. Olivia represents the interests of low-income clients at the federal and state level on energy and utility issues. She regularly submits testimony to Congress on the importance of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), as well as comments to various federal agencies and state public utility commissions on behalf of low-income consumers. Olivia is on the board of the National Low-Income Energy Consortium, and co-chairs the LIHEAP Coalition, which is comprised of a broad array of national, regional and local groups and organizations. She was recently a member of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council’s Small Systems Affordability Work Group and serves on the steering committee for the Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water. Olivia co-edits NCLC’s quarterly Energy & Utility Update newsletter as well as co-authors NCLC’s Access to Utility Service (2nd edition) and is a contributing author to several other NCLC publications including Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices.

Prior to coming to the National Consumer Law Center, Olivia was an Economic Justice Fellow in Consumers Union’s Washington Office. There she worked on telecommunications issues affecting low-income consumers, including a major filing to the Federal Communications Commission on the high cost of long distance service for low volume users.

Olivia is a 1989 graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and a 1995 graduate of Golden Gate School of Law in San Francisco, California. She also has a Master of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also admitted to the DC and Maryland bar.

Chi Chi Wu joined NCLC after a five-year stint at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office litigating consumer protection cases, where she specialized in health fraud, sweepstakes, and scams against immigrants.  In addition, she worked on health care issues, including an initiative to encourage hospitals and HMOs to provide community benefits to underserved populations.  Chi Chi Wu was also a Harry Dow Fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services, where she represented battered Asian women.  Rounding out her eclectic career are periods of services as a staff attorney for the US Food and Drug Administration and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Chi Chi is active in the Boston Asian American community, serving on the boards of directors of the Asian American Resource Workshop and Asian Pacific American Agenda Coalition.  She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the Johns Hopkins University. She is also admitted to the Massachusetts and New York bar.

Operations Staff

Claire Bolton, development assistant, joined NCLC in July 2008. A 2008 graduate of Smith College, she recently completed “Gender Inequality and Social Security Reform,” an economics study using consumer theory. She previously worked as the economic development assistant at Nuestras Raíces, a nonprofit focused on small business growth in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Eleanna Cruz, administrative assistant, joined the Center in spring of 2006. If you happen to call NCLC's Boston office, you will be greeted by Eleanna's pleasant voice. She provides administrative and clerical support to the office manager and NCLC's attorneys. Prior to coming to the Center, Eleanna worked at the Valdez Law Office in Boston. She is a graduate of Bay State College.

Suzanne Cutler, development director, is an experienced fundraiser having worked in the development departments at Brigham and Women’ Hospital and at Brandeis University, as well as several smaller non-profits. Prior to switching her sights to fundraising, Suzanne was co-founder of a chain of weekly newspapers on Boston’s South Shore and of two in Texas.

Rich DuBois, development director, joined the Center in 1997 as a staff attorney specializing in issues of sustainable home ownership, foreclosure prevention and consumer bankruptcy. He authored the 1998 supplement to NCLC's Consumer Warranty Law. Before joining NCLC, Rich practiced at the Center for Insurance Research in Cambridge, Mass. where he was an advocate for insurance policyholder rights, especially in insurance company mergers and conversions.

Margaret Kohler joined NCLC in July 1998 as director of finance and as such monitors income and expenses and helps guide the Center’s finances. Her prior experience includes seven years in finance and administration at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Margaret earned her B.A. and an MBA in non-profit management from Boston University.

Svetlana Ladan, operations manager, works closely with the director, deputy director and director of finance and oversees office operations. Her responsibilities also include helping manage computer network and timeslips database, monitoring staff deadlines and schedules, and helping staff use new technologies. Svetlana graduated from the University of Sarajevo Law School (1990).

Ava Morgenstern, development assistant, joined the Center in August 2006. A graduate of Brandeis University, she has worked in fundraising at the University of the Arts and has coordinated numerous events and campaigns at Brandeis, including the Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive. She has also received fellowships to explore sociological issues in Northern Ireland and The Netherlands.

Debbie Parziale, office manager, joined NCLC in 1985. She supervises the administrative assistants, arranges logistics of board of directors meetings, and organizes registration and accounts receivable of the annual Consumer Rights Litigation conference and other conferences. She prepares materials used at advocacy trainings, organizes NCLC's mailings, fulfills free publication orders, and coordinates all of NCLC hiring. She also manages office equipment and oversees ordering office supplies and other tasks to assure the smooth functioning of the office.

Eric Secoy is a legal editor of the Center's consumer law manuals. Prior to joining the Center full-time he performed legal research updating various sections of the manuals, and also participated in class action litigation with the Center. Eric was a solo practitioner for over ten years prior to joining the Center staff in 2000. Eric received his A.B. from Grinnell College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Mallory SoRelle, research assistant, joined the Center in August 2006. She conducts research for a variety of NCLC’s advocacy projects. A graduate of Smith College, she recently served as a 2006 Fellow to the Center for the Study of the Presidency and worked previously as a Joint Program in Survey Methodology Junior Fellow at the National Center for Education Statistics. A political enthusiast, Mallory served as a constituency intern for the 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign during both the primary and general elections.