Allyson Bain

Attorney General’s Office, IL

Allyson Bain is an Assistant Attorney General with the Public Interest Division’s Disability Rights Bureau of the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. She primarily serves as lead counsel for fair housing cases alleging disability rights-related violations under the Illinois Human Rights Act, and she also investigates and resolves claims of disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Fair Housing Act, Illinois Human Rights Act, and other state and federal laws. Before joining the Office of the Illinois Attorney General in August 2023, Allyson worked for six years at the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, Inc. (ACLU of Illinois) as a Skadden Fellow and then as a Staff Attorney. Before joining the ACLU of Illinois, Allyson served as a judicial law clerk for Magistrate Judges Alan Kay and Robin Meriweather of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She is also the “Ally” behind “Ally’s Law,” or the Illinois Restroom Access Act, which requires retail establishments to provide access to employee-only restrooms for customers with medical conditions. Allyson earned her B.A. from Lake Forest College and her J.D. from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

Kathryn Boughton

Attorney General’s Office, AZ

Kathryn Boughton works as an Assistant Attorney General in the Special Litigation section of the Solicitor General’s Office within the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. In this role, she focuses on constitutional and appellate litigation and government compliance investigations.

Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Kathryn worked in private practice where she represented clients in complex commercial disputes and maintained an active pro bono practice. Kathryn is a graduate of Arizona State University and clerked for the Honorable Robert Brutinel, Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Prior to law school, Kathryn served for several years in the federal government where she focused on immigration-related issues and worked for a private immigration law firm.

Hannah Flores

Los Angeles Office of County Counsel, CA

Hannah Flores is a Deputy County Counsel in the Affirmative Litigation and Consumer Protection Division at the Los Angeles Office of County Counsel. Prior to joining County Counsel, she worked at Bay Area Legal Aid and Inner City Law Center, where she provided direct representation to low income tenants in slum housing litigation and unlawful detainer proceedings. At County Counsel, she conducts investigations and prosecutes civil lawsuits to enforce state laws that prohibit unfair and unlawful business practices. She also works on code enforcement matters and advises Los Angeles County (County) departments on enforcement of the County Code including, but not limited to, the County's tenant protection ordinances and minimum wage program. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Loyola Law School.

Susan Harris

Town of Brookline, MA

Susan Harris is associate town counsel for the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts. In that role, she provides legal representation and support to Town officials, boards and commissions, department heads, and staff. She also represents the Town in litigation before state and federal courts and administrative agencies. Prior to joining Brookline’s Office of Town Counsel, Susan served as legal counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Professional Practices Investigations, where she investigated and prosecuted allegations of educator misconduct. She also previously served as an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County. Susan graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and Boston College Law School.

Lilly Hecht

Division on Civil Rights, NJ

Lilly Hecht is a Deputy Attorney General with the Affirmative Enforcement Unit (AEU) of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) as a member of the 2023-2025 cohort of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Honors Program. Her focus is on intersectional racial and social justice with a particular interest in community-based advocacy. As a member of AEU, she helps spearhead DCR’s division-initiated, priority investigations of systemic, pattern and practice discrimination. She previously served as a 2021-2023 Excelsior Fellow with the Appeals & Litigation Unit of the New York State Division of Human Rights, where she pursued appellate judicial enforcement of and respondent compliance with agency findings of discrimination. She graduated with honors from Brandeis University and New York University School of Law.

Kaitlyn Karpenko

Attorney General’s Office, MA

Kaitlyn Karpenko currently serves as an Assistant Attorney General in the Data Privacy and Security Division for the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. Her work is dedicated to data privacy enforcement and internet consumer protection matters, particularly focused on power imbalances between large corporations and individuals. Before joining the AGO, she worked as a criminal prosecutor in New York City, helping survivors of domestic violence navigate the criminal justice system. Kaitlyn holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an LL.M. in International Criminal Law from the University of Amsterdam, and a B.A. from the University of Rochester. Prior to law school, she worked as a paralegal for law firms focused on civil rights and employment discrimination.

Erick Perla

Gaithersburg City Attorney’s Office, MD

Erick Perla is the Assistant City Attorney for Gaithersburg, Maryland. Erick has dedicated his career to upholding the safety and general welfare of the community. As an Assistant City Attorney, Erick provides legal advice to various City departments, commissions, and boards while serving as the primary litigation attorney for the City. Prior to joining the Gaithersburg Office of the City Attorney, Erick worked as a State prosecutor in the Frederick County State Attorney’s Office for three years. Erick has also worked for the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Erick obtained his B.A. from the University of Maryland at College Park and J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Alexis Piazza

Attorney General’s Office, CA

Alexis M. Piazza is a Deputy Attorney General in the Bureau of Children’s Justice, Civil Rights Enforcement Section, at the California Attorney General’s Office. In that role, he leads investigations into local public agencies regarding their interactions with school-age youth. He has also served as principal author for amicus briefs, filed on behalf of the Attorney General with the California Supreme Court and California Court of Appeal, regarding the rights of students when facing school discipline. Alexis clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Alexis received his law degree from New York University School of Law, his teaching credential from University of California – Los Angeles, Center X, and his undergraduate degree from Claremont McKenna College.

Lucy Prather

City of Chicago Law Department, IL

Lucy serves as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the City of Chicago Law Department's Affirmative Litigation Division. In this role, Lucy works to protect the residents of Chicago through enforcement of local consumer protection, tenant, affordable housing, and other code provisions. Before joining the Affirmative Litigation Division, Lucy practiced municipal and zoning law at a small municipal law firm. She began her legal career as a law clerk in the Eastern District of New York. Lucy is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Smith College.

Shilpa Ram

Civil Rights Department, CA

Shilpa Ram is Assistant General Counsel at the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), where she advises all divisions within CRD on their legal obligations and works collaboratively to identify solutions that allow CRD’s divisions to accomplish CRD’s overall civil rights goals. Prior to joining CRD, she was a senior staff attorney on the education equity team at Public Advocates, where she served on several coalitions, collaborated with her colleagues to advocate for resources for high-need students, and engaged in capacity-building with community partners to advance their priorities.

Shilpa also worked as a civil rights attorney at the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education (OCR) for several years, where she investigated, negotiated, and resolved complaints of discrimination against school districts, colleges, and other recipients of federal funding, and monitored recipients’ compliance with OCR resolution agreements. She also served on the steering committee of OCR’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, mentored law students in OCR’s Legal Intern Program and regularly provided workshops and trainings in English and Spanish to parents, community-based organizations, school districts, colleges and other partners on students’ and parents’ civil rights in school. While at OCR, Shilpa served on the Regional Network of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) and the AAPI Bullying Prevention Task Force. Currently, she is a Board member of the American Constitution Society’s Bay Area Lawyer Chapter. Her interests include traveling, swimming, and visiting bakeries and ice cream parlors with her family and friends.

David Rangaviz

Attorney General’s Office, MA

David Rangaviz is an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, where he focuses much of his work on issues related to police accountability, housing discrimination, and criminal justice. Outside the office, Dave serves on the nonprofit board of Project Citizenship, an organization that seeks to increase naturalization rates in Massachusetts. He also serves: as a member (and former co-chair) of the Boston Bar Association’s Criminal Law Steering Committee, on the Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers Oversight Committee, and as a hearing officer for the Board of Bar Overseers. He previously worked as an appellate staff attorney at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, and a trial attorney in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. Dave also teaches criminal procedure at Boston College Law School. After law school, Dave clerked for Kent Jordan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Barbara Lenk of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and John Conroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont. He is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School.

Kyle Rapinan

Attorney General’s Office, NY

Kyle S. Rapiñan (they/them/theirs) is an Assistant Attorney General at the Office of the New York State Attorney General (OAG), Civil Rights Bureau, where they enforce laws that protect all New Yorkers from discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, source of income or disability. Using federal, state, and local civil rights laws, such as the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, New York State Human Rights Law, and other landmark laws, the Bureau investigates and prosecutes discrimination in a variety of areas. Prior to OAG, Kyle worked at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, where they focused on transgender and gender non-conforming rights, racial justice, and disability rights in housing, public accommodations, and employment for nearly five years.

Before OAG, Kyle also ran their own law practice, helping adults and minors change their name and update their various identification documents and has helped form small businesses (LLCs and PLLCs). Kyle was also the Director of Survival and Self-Determination at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, where they worked alongside low-income transgender and gender non-conforming people of color for gender self-determination and liberation - by securing name changes, updated ID documents, and health care procedures under New York State Medicaid. Before law school, Kyle founded a youth-led arts venue, Queer Youth Space. Kyle graduated from Northeastern University School of Law and the University of Washington. Kyle enjoys biking, travel deals, and finding additional ways to love New York City.

Gavriel Schreiber

Kansas City Mayor’s General Counsel, MO

Gavriel Schreiber serves as General Counsel to Mayor Quinton Lucas in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. In this role, he oversees litigation strategy for the Mayor’s office and provides legal analysis and guidance to advance the administration’s goals of building a stronger, more vibrant Kansas City for all residents. His portfolio also includes development strategy, housing policy, and policy drafting and analysis. Gavriel engages with broader legal trends by guest lecturing at the University of Kansas Law School and publishing scholarship on local government law, including a recent article in the University of Chicago Law Review on cities’ strategies for resisting state preemption.

Gavriel clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He received a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as Strategy and Oversight Chair of the Harvard Law Review.

Sarah Silver

Attorney General’s Office, CO

Sarah Silver is an Assistant Attorney General in the Housing Protection Unit, Consumer Protection Section of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. In this role, she conducts investigations and litigates civil cases to enforce state laws that aim to prevent fraud, abuse, and discrimination in housing. Sarah is one of two attorneys who make up the recently formed Housing Protection team and is thus also responsible for developing a slate of enforcement priorities and bringing public awareness to Colorado housing laws. Before joining the Housing Protection Unit, Sarah was an Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Fraud Unit.

Prior to her work for the Attorney General’s Office, Sarah spent eight years at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, NY, where she defended tenants facing eviction and brought affirmative cases to enforce the warranty of habitability. She earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her B.A. in Political Science and German Language from Kalamazoo College.

Blake Welbourn

Harris County Attorney’s Office, TX

Blake Welborn is an Assistant County Attorney in the Environmental Division of the Harris County Attorney’s Office. Blake’s practice includes environmental enforcement, public health and safety issues, and affirmative impact litigation on behalf of Harris County. He began his time with Harris County as a joint Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project fellow, where his project focused on designing citizen suits for Harris County under the Clean Air Act.

Blake graduated from the University of Texas School of Law and Texas A&M University. Prior to law school, he taught high school science in Dallas, Texas as a Teach for America corps member.