| STAFF |
| Law Center Attorneys Click on names for complete bios |
Jennifer R. Clarke, Executive Director Michael Churchill, Of Counsel Adam H. Cutler, Director, Public Health and Environmental Justice Clinic Bessie Dewar James Eiseman, Jr. Thomas K. Gilhool, Of Counsel (retired) Judith A. Gran, Director, Disabilities Rights Project Barbara E. Ransom Aaron B. Zisser |
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Other Staff Members
Latrice Brooks, Secretary Elizabeth Bryson, Secretary Kathy Miller, Comptroller Lauren R. Mirowitz, Development Director Cynthia Warfield, Receptionist
 Ms. Clarke is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where she was an
editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Stone Scholar. She is a magna cum laude
graduate of Dartmouth College. Ms. Clarke joined the Law Center in February
2006. From 1991 until January 2006, Ms. Clarke was a partner at Dechert LLP. She
was an associate at Dechert Price & Rhoads (1987-1991) and White & Case
(1983-1987). Ms. Clarke has spent her legal career defending and prosecuting
complex civil cases, with a concentration in antitrust class actions. She was
counsel for a plaintiff class of Michigan children to redress the failure by
state officials to provide health care as required by the Social Security Act.
She also was counsel for the City of Philadelphia in a successful suit
challenging the constitutionality of a state statute that altered the balance of
power between the city and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She represented
then Philadelphia City Council President John Street in a suit against the
Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority and the Transit Workers Union, seeking
to compel the two to settle a long-running and harmful transit strike. Ms.
Clarke is listed in Best Lawyers in America. 2005, 2006; Chambers USA 2005 and
as a Philadelphia Magazine Superlawyer, 2004, 2006 and 2007. She was a founder
and officer of The Caring Center, a not-for-profit child care center serving 200
children in West Philadelphia.
back to top  A graduate of Harvard College and cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr.
Churchill joined the Law Center in 1976. Prior to that, he clerked for Chief
Judge J. Edward Lumbard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, then was an
associate and then partner at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll. Mr. Churchill
also served as Acting General Counsel of the Philadelphia School District in
1984. Among the many landmark cases litigated by Mr. Churchill are the
Philadelphia School District desegregation case, PHRC v. School District of
Philadelphia; Dickerson v. U.S. Steel, a race discrimination case under Title
VII; Freeman v. City of Philadelphia, a police hiring class action; and
McLaughlin v. Pernsley, which established the right to trans-racial adoption in
Pennsylvania. Mr. Churchill is a 1994 recipient of the Lawyers' Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law's Edwin D. Wolf Award. In 1995, Mr. Churchill was
recognized with the Philadelphia Bar Association's Obermeyer Award for service
to education and in 2000 he received the Guardian Civic League's Special
Recognition Award.
back to top Adam H. Cutler, Director, Public Health and Environmental Justice Clinic
 After
practicing law for more than thirty-five years at Drinker Biddle & Reath,
Mr. Eiseman retired in 2003 and joined the staff of the Law Center where he
currently handles litigation to improve the delivery of health care services
to children and to develop quality community services for the disabled. Mr.
Eiseman graduated from Harvard College with honors. He obtained his law
degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he served as
Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Mr. Eiseman was a partner at Drinker for
more than twenty-five years and Of Counsel for four years. While there, Mr.
Eiseman handled a wide variety of litigation, including anti-trust, contract
and civil rights cases for motion picture and theatre operators, contract
and environmental cases for manufacturers and defamation, tenure and
employment termination cases for hospitals and universities. Since the
mid-1980s, Mr. Eiseman's principal civic involvement has been as a board
member of the Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia and its
affiliate, the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia, of which he is
currently Chairman. back to top  A graduate of Lehigh University, Yale University and Yale Law School, Mr.
Gilhool joined the Law Center in 1975 where he concentrates his practice in
disabilities rights and early childhood development, including state-of-the-art
educational practices and children's health care. He worked continually at the
Law Center until 1986 when he left to serve Governor Robert P. Casey as the
first Philadelphian in the history of the Commonwealth to be appointed Secretary
of Education. Mr. Gilhool is a nationally recognized leader in the disabilities
rights movement. He is credited with the rise of community services for people
with developmental disabilities and was a major player in the passage of Section
504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Mr. Gilhool represented the Pennsylvania
Association for Retarded Children in PARC v. Pennsylvania. This case was pivotal
in establishing the Constitutional right of children with disabilities to a
public education and led to the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act of 1975, now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA). Mr. Gilhool was lead counsel in Halderman v. Pennhurst, a critical case
that both initiated and fueled the national movement for the
de-institutionalization of persons with disabilities. In addition, Mr. Gilhool
was lead counsel in Scott v. Snider, the Pennsylvania case to enforce Title XIX
Medicaid statutes that tripled the number of eligible children enrolled in the
program from 300,000 to 900,000. In 1991, Mr. Gilhool received the Philadelphia
Bar Association's Obermeyer Award for service to education and in 2002 he was
honored by the American Academy of Pediatrics with its President's Award for
Outstanding Service. Mr. Gilhool spent 2003-04 on a Fulbright scholarship in
Japan to write comparatively about the legal and non-legal strategies used to
advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
back to top Judith A. Gran, Director, Disabilities Rights Project
back to top
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Mr. Cutler received his undergraduate degree in Economics,
cum laude, from the Wharton School
of the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from the University of
Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as an Executive Editor on the
University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
Ms. Dewar is a
graduate of the Yale Law School, where she co-directed the Green Haven
Prison Project, represented clients in the criminal defense clinic, and was
Comments Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Prior to joining the Law Center in
2008, she served as law clerk to the Honorable Louis H. Pollak of the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Honorable
William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Ms. Gran is a cum laude graduate of Temple University School of Law where she
was a staff member of the Temple Law Quarterly. She holds an A.B. with honors
from Wellesley College and an A.M. from the University of Chicago in political
science. She was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship for research in Egypt and
she was a National Defense Title IV and Title VI fellow. Joining the Law Center
in 1984, Ms. Gran has devoted her legal career to representing persons with
disabilities and their organizations in litigation, providing training,
technical assistance and counseling. She has represented thousands of students
with disabilities and their parents in due process hearings and cases arising
under IDEA and Section 504 in federal court around the country, including
individual and class action cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware,
Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri and Oklahoma. Ms. Gran was lead
counsel in 
Ms.
Ransom, a graduate of Temple University School of Law, also holds a Masters
of Education in Counseling Psychology, a Bachelors of Science in Computer
Technology and a Bachelors of Science, Education, in Foreign Languages. She
has practiced law at the Law Center since 1991 with a one-year break as
Assistant Chief Counsel at the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
Prior to attending law school, Ms. Ransom worked as a teacher and as a
college counselor. At the Law Center, Ms. Ransom focuses on protecting the
rights of students with disabilities. 
Mr. Zisser is a graduate, cum laude, of
Georgetown University Law Center, where he earned a Certificate in Refugees
and Humanitarian Emergencies and participated in Georgetown’s International
Women’s Human Rights Clinic, which included a fact-finding mission to
Swaziland. Mr. Zisser earned his B.A. in Comparative Literature, with
distinction, from U.C. Berkeley. Prior to joining PILCOP in September 2008,