People

Shannon Heffernan, Co-Executive Producer

In addition to her work on Life of the Law, Heffernan is a producer for Chicago Public Media/WBEZ’s in-depth reporting project Front and Center, where she has reported on everything from tribal fishing rights to the validity of GED testing. Prior to working at Chicago Public Media/WBEZ, Heffernan was a Open Society Foundation Media Fellow.

Nancy Mullane, Co-Executive Producer

Nancy Mullane develops, reports, and produces feature stories for Public Radio International’s This American Life, National Public Radio and the NPR affiliate KALW News-Crosscurrents in San Francisco. In 2012 her first non-fiction book, Life After Murder: Five Men In Search of Redemption was published by Public Affairs. She is a member of the Society for Professional Journalists, the Association of Independents in Radio, and the International Women’s Media Foundation. In 2011, Nancy was the recipient of a National Edward R. Murrow Award.

Mary Adkins, LIVE LAW Producer and Blog Director

Mary Adkins is a writer and lawyer. She graduated from Duke University and Yale Law School, where she co-directed the Domestic Violence Clinic for two years. Before leaving law practice, she was an associate at Boies, Schiller & Flexner where she also served as Pro Bono Coordinator. Her plays have been produced in New York and regionally, and her essays have been published in Slate, the New York Daily News, and the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, among others.

Kaitlin Prest, Producer

Kaitlin Prest is an all around documentary audio artist. She is the executive producer of Audio Smut, a sex positive radio show and art collective. Every few months she directs the “Radio Cabaret” at Union Docs in Brooklyn, a public radio performance event. Her work has been featured on NPR’s Snap Judgment, at In the Dark as part of the International Features Conference in London, on Radiophonic Creation Day in France and was the winner of the 2010 NCRA award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary.

Julia Barton, Editor

Julia Barton has been telling stories for radio, print and Web for more than two decades. She’s a correspondent for PRI’s “The World” and contributing producer for PRI’s “Studio 360,” among other programs. She’s been an editor for national programming at American Public Media, an International Reporting Project Fellow, and a staff reporter at WHYY/Philadelphia and WSUI/Iowa City. She’s also done extensive media training in the former Soviet Union. For recent work, go to juliabarton.com.

Ashleyanne Krigbaum, Production Assistant

When Ashleyanne isn’t working behind-the-scenes at Life of the Law, she can be found at San Francisco’s KALW, reporting for Crosscurrents and contributing to the programs Chew On This and Audiograph. She has been an active DJ and independent public radio producer for over five years, as well as a correspondent for the Associated Press and East Bay Express.

Contributors

Christine Clarke

Christine Clarke is an employment lawyer at Beranbaum Menken LLP in New York City. She has published in Slate and writes an employment law blog at Wage Against the Machine.

Gilad Edelman

Gilad Edelman is a student at Yale Law School. He has also been known to play a bit of jazz saxophone.

Graham Gremore

Graham Gremore is a writer and cartoonist born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing, and he is the co-founder and co-director of StoryFarm, a literary arts non-profit in San Francisco. His cartoons have garnered over 125,000 views on Youtube, and have been featured on websites including The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

Juan Haines

Juan Haines is an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. He is Managing Editor of the San Quentin News and works as a jailhouse attorney.

Anne Hamilton

Anne Hamilton is an attorney and a filmmaker. She holds a J.D. from Yale and a Masters degree from Stanford. She got her start in film as an intern on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and has worked on several projects since then. She lives in California.

Raj Jayadev

Raj Jayadev is the Coordinator of the Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project, an organizing model for families and communities to impact their criminal court systems. ACJP is a part of Silicon Valley De-Bug, an organizing and advocacy organization based in San Jose, CA. Contact him at [email protected]

Lucas Mills (Juror #4)

Lucas Mills is a television writer at Nickelodeon. He graduated from Yale Law School, where he was the Head Writer and Co-Director of the Yale Law Revue. He loves all sorts of storytelling, particularly when it’s animated.

Kimberly Richman

Kimberly Richman is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of San Francisco, where she teaches courses on criminology, sociology of law, deviance, and prisoner reentry. She has authored two books and several articles on gay/lesbian family rights and same sex marriage, and is the co-founder and president of the board of directors of the non-profit Alliance for CHANGE, which works with incarcerated men in San Quentin State Prison and assists them in successful reentry upon parole.

Sopen Shah

Sopen Shah is a student at Yale Law School. She was previously an accomplished financial expert at Bloomberg and a management consultant at McKinsey & Company after graduating from Harvard. In addition to making frequent TV and radio appearances, she has been published in Businessweek magazine, Politico, The Hill, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Talking Points Memo. She was Miss District of Columbia International in 2011 and Junior Miss Wisconsin in 2004.

Kate Tellers 

Kate Tellers’ stories have appeared in the New York Press, on the Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy (columnist), xojane.com, thebillfold.com and on stages. She is a host of The Moth StorySLAMs in New York City. @katadudle

Katherine Thompson

Katherine Thompson is a writer, teacher, and modern-day explorer living in Sydney, Australia. She has taught English, creative writing, and other subjects to students in Los Angeles, New York, and North Carolina, and was a winner in the UCLA Live Poetry Contest (judged by Billy Collins and Kay Ryan) in 2011. She loves traveling and being home, sleeping and being awake, and writing and receiving handwritten letters. She holds a B.A. in English from Duke University and an M.A. Ed. in English Education from Wake Forest University.

Supporters

Life of the Law is supported by a grant from the Foundation to Promote Open Society (Open Society Foundations). Web Development & Ongoing Web Design provided by Phillip Wilt. Graphic design and website design provided by Imaginista (Esteban Mugica, Senior Designer). Intellectual property advice provided by Shapiro Law. Fiscal oversight provided by the International Media Project.

Advisory Panel

Amy Bach, Visiting Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School Scott Barclay, Professor, Department of History & Political Science, Drexel University Renee Ann Cramer, Director & Professor, Department of Sociology, Drake University Ben Fleury-Steiner, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice, University of Delaware Jon Gould, Director, Washington Institute for Public & International Affairs Research, American University Thomas Hilbink, Senior Program Officer, Open Society Foundations Elizabeth Joh, Professor, UC-Davis School of Law Anna-Maria Marshall, Associate Professor, Law & Sociology, University of Illinois Laura Beth Nielsen, Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, Associate Professor of Sociology & Director of the Center for Legal Studies, Northwestern University Imani Perry, Professor, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University David Onek, Senior Fellow, UC-Berkeley School of Law Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science, Amherst College