Elizabeth Howell

Elizabeth is an attorney focused on prisoner reentry issues at the Center for Appellate Litigation. The Center for Appellate Litigation is a New York not-for-profit law firm which handles appeals and post-conviction proceedings on behalf of criminal defendants. Elizabeth, a 2008 graduate of Columbia Law School, is the recipient of a Kirkland & Ellis Public Service Fellowship. At Columbia, she was the Executive Editor of the Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual, an important national resource for prisoners. Elizabeth has experience as an intern at the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and at Loevy & Loevy, a civil rights law firm in Chicago, IL. Prior to law school, Elizabeth worked at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. She worked with NYCPR as a law student, and continues to play a leadership role today. She currently serves on the Corrections Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Ilann Margalit Maazel

Ilann is a partner at the firm Emery Celli Brinkerhoff & Abady LLP. Ilann’s civil rights docket focuses upon police misconduct, free speech, election, education, employment discrimination, wrongful death, and class action litigation. Mr. Maazel joined the firm after clerking for the Hon. John M. Walker on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He has served as class counsel or co-counsel to a putative class of tens of millions of Americans subjected to illegal surveillance by the federal government, to a class of hundreds of preschool children with disabilities in a suit against the New York City and State Departments of Education, and to a class of thousands of inmates in New York City prisons in a suit against the New York City Department of Corrections. Ilann is a recipient of the Legal Aid Society's 2004 and 2005 Pro Bono Publico Awards, a 2001-02 recipient of a Coro Fellowship, Leadership New York, and received an Echoing Green Public Service Fellowship, awarded to “outstanding individuals who are committed to public service work.” A columnist for the New York Law Journal, he regularly writes and lectures on civil rights, First Amendment, education, and election law issues, and is a frequent commentator on civil rights issues in the national media.

Amanda Masters

Amanda is the founder of NYCPR. Amanda is an attorney with Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP, and has been a public interest attorney since 1996. For eight years, Amanda worked as a Director and Senior Staff Attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), a non-profit civil rights firm. At NYLPI, Amanda supervised litigation and advocacy programs, including impact litigation, administrative advocacy, direct representation, community organizing and outreach. Prior to this work, Amanda was an associate at a firm focused on official misconduct and other civil rights issues, and a staff attorney at a legal services organization focused on immigrants’ rights. She has served as Program Director for the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, Treasurer of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP) and Sisterhood Mobilized for AIDS/HIV Research and Treatment (SMART), and has taught numerous Continuing Legal Education courses on the topics of police misconduct and using volunteer resources effectively. She is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Legal Aid.

Jeffery A. Rothman

Jeffery is a civil rights attorney in New York City with a practice focused on police misconduct and other government abuse of authority. Jeffrey has been a member of the NYCPR since its inception, and also serves on the Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, a non-profit that has for over 65 years supported the struggles for racial justice, civil rights and workers' rights. He has been instrumental in representing dozens of the 1,806 people arrested during the week of the 2004 Republic National Convention in ongoing litigation. Jeffrey is a 2001 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

McGregor Smyth

McGregor is the Managing Attorney of the Civil Action Practice, and the Director of Reentry Net at the Bronx Defenders. McGregor established the Civil Action Project in 2000 and has extensive practical experience helping clients cope with the consequences of criminal proceedings and facilitating civil-defender collaborations. On behalf of his clients, he has advocated or litigated in nearly every venue in New York City - administrative, state, and federal. Prior to joining The Bronx Defenders, he graduated from Yale Law School, where he represented clients for two years as a student director of the Community Legal Services clinic. He then served as a law clerk for the Hon. Charles P. Sifton, then-Chief Judge of the Eastern District of New York. He is a recipient of the Arthur Liman Public Interest Law Fellowship, the Legal Aid Society Pro Bono Publico Award, and the Skadden Fellowship. He serves on the New York State Bar Association Special Committee on Collateral Consequences of Criminal Proceedings, the New York County Lawyers' Association Task Force on Criminal Courts, the Social Welfare Committee of the New York City Bar.

Alex S. Vitale

Alex is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brooklyn College. Alex is the author of "City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics" NYU Press 2008; "The Command and Control and Miami Models at the 2004 Republican National Convention: New Forms of Policing Protests," Mobilization. 12 (4) December 2007; Rights and Wrongs at the RNC: A Special Report About Police and Protest at the Republican National Convention, August 2005, New York Civil Liberties Union, and many other publications addressing the policing of dissent, homelessness, and other civil rights issues. Alex has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study policing in South Korea, and has engaged in comparative analysis of policing practices nationally and internationally for two decades. He is a frequent speaker in national news media.