Some 18 lawyers have been tapped by the transition organization of President-elect Barack Obama to serve on teams examining policy and budget issues on national social issues related to education, labor, health and technology.
In the education review team, leaders include Judith A. Winston, an education and civil rights policy consultant and co-founder of the Winston Withers & Associates law firm. Winston served as general counsel and undersecretary in the Department of Education in the Clinton Administration. Previously, she was a law professor at American University Washington College of Law and a deputy director of the Women's Legal Defense Fund and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights.
Michael Camuñez, a partner at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, specializes in regulatory defense, business litigation and corporate investigations. He served in the Clinton administration as the senior policy adviser for national service, where he helped establish and lead the Corporation for National Service and its flagship program, AmeriCorps. Previously, he was the program officer and director of the National Service Demonstration Program at the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National and Community Service.
Deborah Jospin, the first director of AmeriCorps in 1997, is partner at sagawa/jospin, a consulting practice in Washington. She joined the Corporation for National Service in 1993 as associate general counsel and chief of staff. Currently, she is president of the Daniel Dutko Foundation and chairs the board of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University.
Shirley Sagawa, a nationally known expert on children's policy and philanthropy, has served as deputy chief of state to First Lady Hillary Clinton. She is currently a fellow at the Center for American Progress and co-founder of sagawa/jospin, which provides strategic counseling to nonprofits. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the Commission on National and Community Service. She later served as special assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy, where she drafted legislation creating the Corporation for National Service. She was the Corporation's first managing director, and led the development of AmeriCorps.
In the labor arena, Obama has included on the review team for federal mediation and conciliation, Thomas A. Kochan, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and co-director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. He has served as a mediator, fact finder and arbitrator, was a consultant in 1979-80 to the secretary of Labor in the Office of Policy Evaluation and Research, and was a member of the Clinton administration's Commission on the Future of Worker/Management Relations. He is a past president of the International Industrial Relations Association and the Industrial Relations Research Association and was elected to the National Academy of Human Resources in 1997.
Also named to the team was Northeastern University School of Law Dean Emily Spieler. She is a leading authority on employment law and the social insurance system. She has been dean since 2002. Spieler previously served as commissioner on the West Virginia Workers Compensation Fund and the state's first deputy attorney general for civil rights.
Nancy E. Peace, an arbitrator, mediator and trainer, is past-president of the Association for Conflict Resolution and its predecessor organization, the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. Peace is currently on the board of the Labor and Employment Research Association and is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and an associate member of the Boston Bar Association. In 2008, Governor Deval Patrick appointed her to the Massachusetts Division of Labor Relations Advisory Council.
The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) review team includes Phyllis Segal, who previously served as chairwoman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority from 1994 to 2000 and president and legal director of the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is currently vice president of Civic Ventures at the organization and an executive education instructor on labor agreement negotiations at Harvard Law School and MIT's Sloan School of Management. She has served in the past as chairwoman of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and deputy attorney general of Massachusetts. Early in her career she worked at New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Joseph Swerdzewski, a lawyer in a human resources consulting and training firm, founded Joseph Swerdzewski and Associates. He previously served as the general counsel of the FLRA from 1993 to 2001, and as the president and chief executive officer of FPMI Solutions, a federal government contractor specializing in human resources outsourcing and training, from 2001 to 2004. Swerdzewski was a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force from 1975 to 1979 and in the Air Force Reserve until 1999.
A lawyer member on the team reviewing the National Mediation Board includes Cynthia Estlund, a law professor at New York University School of Law and visiting professor at Harvard Law School. She has written extensively on labor and employment law. She has taught law previously at the University of Texas School of Law and Columbia Law School. Estlund clerked for Judge Patricia Wald of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She practiced labor law at Bredhoff & Kaiser in Washington.
On the Railroad Retirement Board review team is Richard Huberman, who has served as counsel to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Commissioner Thomasina Rogers since 1998. He served as a Democratic staff member on the House Education and Labor Committee from 1995 to 1997 on safety and pension issues. He also worked as counsel to the Commerce Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee handling railroad and consumer protection issues. He previously was a staff attorney for the former Office of Rail Public Counsel.
In the Department of Health and Human Services review team, an attorney assessing policies for the Department of Veterans Affairs is Anthony Brown, Maryland's eighth lieutenant governor and leader of the state's efforts on behalf of veterans, health and economic development. He served in the state House of Delegates and in the military for 24 years. Brown was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and currently commands the 153rd Legal Support Organization.
A Consumer Protection and Safety Commission review participant is Pamela Gilbert, a partner at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca. She worked for Public Citizen's Congress Watch as legislative director and executive director. She is the former executive director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Bill Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, will be part of the Department of Health and Human Services team. He served 12 years as counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. He was also chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Interagency Council on Homelessness will include Roberta Achtenberg, a San Francisco civil rights lawyer and former member of the Board of Supervisors. She served as assistant secretary of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration. She currently is an economic and workforce development consultant.
On the Social Security Administration team will be Jim Roosevelt, president and chief executive officer of the Tufts Health Plan. He served as associate commission for Retirement Policy for the Social Security Administration in Washington. He also served as chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Democratic Party. He spent a decade as partner at Choate, Hall & Stewart in Boston. He is past president of the American Health Lawyers Association.
For the science, technology, space and arts team, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) team will include Susan Crawford, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches communications and Internet law. Crawford was a partner with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) until 2002.
In addition, there is Kevin Werbach, an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His research explores the legal and business dynamics of information and communications technologies. He served as counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC in the Clinton administration.
On the National Science Foundation review is Henry M. Rivera, a partner at Washington-based Wiley Rein. He represents telecommunications and media companies. Rivera has served as an FCC commissioner and a member of several U.S. Delegations to international telecommunications conferences. He is past president of the Federal Communications Bar Association.
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18 Attorneys Serving on Obama's Education, Labor, Health and Technology Transition Teams
The National Law Journal
November 20, 2008
