Jillian blanchard
Director, climate change program
L4GG

Jillian Blanchard is the Director of Lawyers For Good Government's Climate Change Program and a nationally recognized attorney in energy and natural resources law. Ms. Blanchard has worked in all levels of government, nonprofit, and the private sector on environmental, infrastructure, and climate change issues for over 20 years. In 2018, she helped craft Governor Gavin Newsom's climate change platform as part of his reelection campaign and regularly advises cities and public agencies on infrastructure, environmental, and energy issues. As director of the Climate Change and Climate Justice Program at L4GG, she has managed over 400 lawyers to help provide critical guidance to cities, states, and nonprofit partners to help expedite the country's shift to a clean and equitable green economy and to address environmental justice.

JADEN CARTER
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE

Jaden Carter believes in making philanthropy accessible for all, and he brings years of experience leading fundraising efforts for community-led, grassroots non profit organizations. Prior to joining L4GG, he served as the Development Manager for Elevate North Texas, where he managed resource development to grow Elevate from a small volunteer project to an established organization supporting hundreds of homeless youth every year.

Jaden's expertise lies in leveraging institutional funding to build capacity, and he has experience in grant writing and management for a variety of issue areas, including LGBTQ+ rights, HIV care, homelessness services, mental health, animal rights, and arts and culture. He is excited to bring these skills to L4GG, where so many critical and intersectional issues are simultaneously supported at the common thread of equity and justice for all.

ESTUARDO CIFUENTES
Client Services manager, project corazon
L4GG

Estuardo is Project Corazon's Client Services Manager. In this role, he manages client outreach initiatives, develops new programs and partnerships, and provides support and resources to asylum seekers.

As an asylum seeker who spent over eighteen months in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols, Estuardo has a unique understanding of the obstacles individuals face when seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border. During his time in Mexico, Estuardo started a program designed to provide LGBTQ+ asylum seekers with support and resources in Mexico and beyond. Through this program, Estuardo worked to connect LGBTQ+ asylum seekers with medical care, legal support, safe shelters, and other resources.

Estuardo continues to leverage his lived expertise to support particularly vulnerable asylum seekers in Mexico and the US as well as to educate attorneys, community members, and other stakeholders about asylum-related issues. He has been featured in various publications including The NY Times, National Geographic, El Pais, Univision, and Telemundo. Prior to his work supporting asylum seekers, Estuardo and his husband ran a successful digital and marketing business in Guatemala for several years. He holds a degree in business administration from San Carlos University in Guatemala.

jonathan dinerstein
environmental justice staff ATTORNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
L4GG

Prior to joining L4GG, Jonathan was an Assistant Attorney General for the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. As an AAG, he represented Massachusetts ratepayers in dockets before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities in dockets involving renewable energy, utility financing, gas safety, and environmental justice. He also previously worked as a class action and consumer rights attorney, as well as an appellate paralegal and summer law clerk at the U.S. Department of Justice. Jonathan is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and is licensed to practice in Massachusetts. During law school, Jonathan represented a housing client as a student attorney in the BU Law Civil Litigation Clinic and was an Articles Editor for the Boston University Law Review. He holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Sterling Howard
Vice President of Development and Engagement
L4GG

Sterling Howard leads L4GG’s fundraising, communications, and attorney engagement efforts. Previously, Ms. Howard served as Director of Development & Communications at Rising for Justice. In this role she led the organization, previously known as D.C. Law Students in Court, through a name change and rebrand. She also planned the organization's 50th Anniversary. From 2011 - 2018, Ms. Howard was a Senior Manager at Equal Justice Works in the Fellowship Program, where her portfolio of work was a unique mix of program management, sponsor relations and fundraising. Sterling has a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Art History from S.M.U. 

Latonya Joyner-Gregory
SLAA Leadership program Director
L4GG

LaTonya Joyner-Gregory has dedicated her career to pursuing equality for all. Prior to joining L4GG as Director of Attorney Impact and Engagement, LaTonya was the Founder and Principal of Evergreen Advocacy Consulting, LLC, a government relations firm that specialized in social justice advocacy and facilitated customized advocacy trainings to advance her clients’ efforts – most notably in the area of immigrants’ rights. LaTonya has also served as a Policy Analyst for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, and there, she provided legislators and government agencies with information and analysis on how to improve access to reproductive health care. Prior to that, she worked as a Public Benefits Staff Attorney for the Virginia Poverty Law Center and served as the inaugural Director of its anti-hunger initiative, Virginia Hunger Solutions.

LaTonya earned her JD from the University of Maryland School of Law and holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Richmond.

Suhayla karawan
executive assistant & Operations manager
L4GG

Suhayla Karawan serves as the Executive Assistant to L4GG’s leadership team and oversees the administrative functions in the organization. Prior to joining L4GG, she worked as an Operations Manager/Administrator for a healthcare startup that provided telehealth services to underinsured and underserved populations. Suhayla graduated from University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in Literature.

Kelly McRae
program coordinator,CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
L4GG

Kelly McRae coordinates L4GG’s Clean Energy Program. Prior to joining L4GG, her graduate work operated at the intersection of public land management, nonprofit and community outreach, municipal engagement, and environmental ethics. Kelly has subsequently worked in a private real estate law practice and campaigned for policy change on federal funding for childcare and early childhood educators. She holds a M.S. in Environmental Studies from Green Mountain College, and a B.S. in Animal Bioscience from Penn State University.

ALYSSA MORRISON
REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE STAFF ATTORNEY
L4GG

Prior to joining L4GG, Alyssa spent 5 years working in constitutional impact litigation at the federal level with the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America (CLCMA). In her role at CLCMA, Alyssa's practice was focused on challenging racial and religious discrimination in federal trial and appellate courts across the country. Alyssa is admitted to practice in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeal and is a member in good standing with the Texas State Bar. During law school, Alyssa was the recipient of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Clinic for Victims of Crimes Against Women scholarship, awarded for her work with asylum seekers and refugees at the Karnes City ICE Detention Center and as a student attorney with YMCA International Services. She holds a B.A. from Texas A&M University and a J.D. from SMU Dedman School of law. Alyssa brings her passion for individual liberty and her experience in constitutional law and civil rights with her to L4GG.

NESTOR PEREZ
CLEAN ENERGY staff ATTORNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
L4GG

Nestor is a Clean Energy Attorney focused on achieving a rapid and equitable transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent clean energy. He is passionate about ensuring the most vulnerable communities are protected first and making sure these communities are not left behind in the shift to a green economy. Prior to joining Lawyers for Good Government, he served as an environmental attorney at the Earthjustice Florida Regional Office where he litigated systemically to transition Miami to Zero Waste filing civil rights litigation, presenting state air permit comments, and advocating for policy change in county commission meetings, radio, TV, op-ed, and in outreach events. He was selected by the State Department - Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Fellowship as one of 75 Americans to represent the United States in Germany in the class of 2010-2011. His writing on environmental justice and minority rights in Latin America was featured by the German human rights organization Society for Threatened Peoples in its magazine Pogrom. Nestor holds a B.A. in International Relations from Florida International University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, an M.A. in Political Science from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and a J.D. from the University of Miami. He is a member of the Bar in Florida and in the District of Columbia.

Jessica Riley
Project Corazon Staff attorney
L4GG

Jessica is L4GG's Project Corazon Staff Attorney and is dedicated to safeguarding and advancing the legal rights of asylum seekers. In addition to providing legal assistance to asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, Jessica also builds and coordinates pro bono systems and trains volunteer attorneys and law students on various immigration-related matters. Jessica is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. While a student, she was awarded a Fellowship in Refugee and Asylum Law and interned with Asylum Access Mexico. She also spent three semesters representing survivors of human trafficking as a student attorney with the Human Trafficking Clinic. Before law school, Jessica worked for the Indiana Department of Child Services and taught English for several years, both in the US and in Chile.

Khadijah M. Silver SUPERVISING attorney - civil rights
L4GG

Khadijah M. Silver, Esq. (they / them / theirs) brings L4GG over 20 years of experience helping community-led coalitions unearth, understand, communicate, and uproot the causes of systemic injustice. Khadijah most recently served as Communications Director at Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), where they led narrative change strategy for trans and non-binary civil rights working in strong, respectful partnership with national and grassroots organizations. Prior to that role, they served as a health law and policy journalist with bylines at Medcity News, Above the Law, Law360, Institutional Investor, Popular Science, Refinery29 and more. They spent a total of seven years in the role of Executive Director at grassroots youth advocacy organizations Resilience Advocacy Project and BetterBio, and served in various management and leadership roles at high-impact organizations before that. Khadijah holds a BA from Mills College, JD from Boston University School of Law, and MPH in Health Policy and Management from SUNY Downstate. They are a member in good standing of the New York State Bar.

LAUREN WORSEK DIRECTOR, PRO BONO INITIATIVES l4gg

Lauren is passionate about leveraging the power of pro bono work to promote justice and create impactful social change. She previously served as the Director of the Pro Bono & Community Service Initiative and Assistant Director of Public Interest Law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, where she oversaw public interest employment and developed pro bono and community service opportunities for law students, faculty, and staff. Prior to that, she was a Portfolio Manager at Equal Justice Works in Washington, DC, where she collaborated on pro bono opportunities for Fellows and developed, launched, and managed programs providing critical immigration services nationwide. Lauren also spent years as an employee benefits associate at Seyfarth Shaw in Washington, DC, where she maintained an extensive pro bono caseload and received the firm’s Pro Bono Associate of the Year distinction. Lauren has a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. She also holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University.

Zenab Youssef
Communications Associate
L4GG

Zenab Youssef is passionate about social justice efforts in the non-profit sector. Prior to joining L4GG, Zenab served as a Communications Specialist at Emgage Action, where she spearheaded social media campaigns centered on Muslim American civic engagement. Additionally, she was a K-5 Early Literacy Teacher at Amplify, serving Baltimore City Public Schools for two years. Zenab also has an extensive background in project coordination, education, and writing/research. She holds a B.A. in Middle-Eastern Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies from Brown University.