Board of Directors

Board Chair

President

Vice President

Secretary

Treasurer

Director

Emeritus Board Member

Advisory Board Members

Sherrilyn Ifill

Steven and Maureen Klinsky Visiting Professor of Practice for Leadership and Progress>br> Former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)

Sherrilyn Ifill is a civil rights lawyer and scholar. From 2013-2022, she served as the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. She most recently served as a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation. In 2024 Ifill will become the inaugural Vernon L. Jordan Chair in Civil Rights at Howard Law School, where will become founding Director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy.

Ifill began her career as a Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, before joining the staff of the LDF as an Assistant Counsel in 1988, where she litigated voting rights cases for five years. In 1993 Ifill left LDF to join the faculty at University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. Over twenty years, Ifill taught civil procedure and constitutional law to thousands of law students, and pioneered a series of law clinics, including one of the earliest law clinics in the country focused on challenging legal barriers to the reentry of ex-offenders, an environmental justice offering, and a clinic on reparations. Ifill is also a prolific scholar who has published academic articles in leading law journals, and op-eds and commentaries in leading newspapers. Her 2008 book “On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century,” was highly acclaimed, and is credited with laying the foundation for contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation. A 10th anniversary edition of the book was recently released with a Foreword by Bryan Stevenson, the acclaimed lawyer and founder of the national lynching memorial in Montgomery, AL.

As the President & Director-Counsel at LDF, Ifill’s voice and analysis played a prominent role in shaping our national conversation about race and civil rights. She led the organization in groundbreaking litigation in the areas of voting rights, economic justice, and education, and took a prominent role in confronting police violence against unarmed Black people. Ifill raised the profile of LDF, growing the organization in staff, resources, and influence. Her strategic vision and counsel are highly sought after from leaders in government, business, law and academia. She continues to write scholarly articles and is currently completing a book about race and the current crisis in American democracy entitled, “Is This America?” which will be published by Penguin Press in 2024.

Ifill graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in English and earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world in 2021. Ifill is a recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, the Brandeis Medal, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, and The Gold Medal from the New York State Bar Association. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019. Ifill serves on the board of the Mellon Foundation, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Board of Trustees of New York University School of Law.

David B. Wilkins

Lester Kissel Professor of Law,
Vice Dean, Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession,
Harvard Law School

Professor Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession and the Center for Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Fellow of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. Professor Wilkins has written over 80 articles on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals and the popular press and is the co-author (along with his Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of one of the leading casebooks in the field. His current scholarly projects include Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (where he directs over 50 researchers studying the impact of globalization on the market for legal services in rapidly developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe); After the JD (a ten-year nationwide longitudinal study of lawyers’ careers); The Harvard Law School Career Study (examining, among other things, differences in the experiences of male and female graduates and the careers of lawyers who do not practice law); and The New Social Engineers (charting the historical development and current experiences of black lawyers in corporate law practice). Professor Wilkins teaches several courses on lawyers including The Legal Profession, Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century, and Challenges of a General Counsel. In 2007, he co-founded Harvard Law School’s Executive Education Program, where he teaches in several courses including Leadership in Law Firms and Leadership in Corporate Counsel. Professor Wilkins has given over 40 endowed lectures at universities around the world and is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and law firm and corporate retreats. His recent academic honors include the 2012 Honorary Doctorate in Law from Stockholm University in Sweden, the 2012 Distinguished Visiting Mentor Award from Australia National University, the 2012 Genest Fellowship from Osgoode Hall Law School, the 2010 American Bar Foundation Scholar of the Year Award, the 2009 J. Clay Smith Award from Howard University School of Law, and the 2008 Order of the Coif Distinguished Visitor Fellowship. In 2012, Professor Wilkins was elected as a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Harvey P. Dale

Professor of Philanthropy and the Law
Director, National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
Attorney

In 1986, at the request of then Dean Norman Redlich, Professor Harvey Dale, an expert in international tax law, began examining the viability of creating a program that studied the legal issues affecting nonprofit organizations. Two years of thorough research later, Professor Dale determined that such a program was indeed viable and redirected his professional efforts to establish the Program on Philanthropy and the Law at the New York University School of Law. The Program is now known as The National Center on Philanthropy and the Law.

Today, the National Center on Philanthropy and the Law explores a broad range of legal issues affecting the nation’s nonprofit sector and serves as an academic forum for an integrated examination of the legal doctrines related to the activities of charitable organizations. The Center boasts a library with the most comprehensive collection of resources ever assembled on the subject of nonprofit law. Its annual publication of student articles written on critical issues affecting nonprofit organizations is well-respected throughout the field.

After teaching international and corporate and tax law for almost two decades, Dale is now a recognized expert and leader in the field of nonprofit law, both in this country and abroad. He has advised groups in Australia, China, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa regarding legal issues affecting nonprofit organizations and the formulation of laws governing these organizations. He has also published several articles concerning, among other subjects, the rationales for tax exemption, international grantmaking, and issues surrounding unrelated business income tax.

In addition to his work as the Director of the National Center for Philanthropy and the Law, Professor Dale has served as an advisor and consultant for the Internal Revenue Service, the Exempt Organizations Tax Review, Independent Sector, and several other nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Professor Dale is Founding President of The Atlantic Philanthropies and was for approximately 20 years (until September 1, 2001) the President and CEO of the Atlantic Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and from 1996 to 2005 was a member of the Cornell University Trustees Investment Committee.

Margaret H. Marshall

Former Chief Justice Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Margaret H. Marshall, a lifelong advocate for equality, justice, and the rule of law, will receive the 2021 Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law. Marshall helped organize student protests against apartheid as a young woman in her native South Africa before emigrating to the United States and embarking on a career as a lawyer, later becoming the first woman chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Her opinion in the groundbreaking decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in 2003, which held that the Massachusetts Constitution prohibits the state from denying same-sex couples access to civil marriage, made the state the first to legalize gay marriage and laid the groundwork for a sea change in attitudes and law across the United States. Born and raised in South Africa, Marshall obtained her baccalaureate from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. While an undergraduate, she was elected president of the National Union of South African Students, a leading anti-apartheid organization at the time. Marshall came to the United States in 1968 to pursue graduate studies at Harvard. She became a U.S. citizen in 1978 and obtained a master’s degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. Her 2003 opinion in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health made global headlines, sparking both criticism and praise. While some states moved to bar same-sex marriage after Goodridge, public opinion began to shift in support of same-sex marriage and several other states moved to legalize it. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the right to same-sex marriage to all U.S. states and territories in Obergefell v. Hodges.Margaret H. Marshall, a lifelong advocate for equality, justice, and the rule of law, will receive the 2021 Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law. Marshall helped organize student protests against apartheid as a young woman in her native South Africa before emigrating to the United States and embarking on a career as a lawyer, later becoming the first woman chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Her opinion in the groundbreaking decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in 2003, which held that the Massachusetts Constitution prohibits the state from denying same-sex couples access to civil marriage, made the state the first to legalize gay marriage and laid the groundwork for a sea change in attitudes and law across the United States. Born and raised in South Africa, Marshall obtained her baccalaureate from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. While an undergraduate, she was elected president of the National Union of South African Students, a leading anti-apartheid organization at the time. Marshall came to the United States in 1968 to pursue graduate studies at Harvard. She became a U.S. citizen in 1978 and obtained a master’s degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. Her 2003 opinion in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health made global headlines, sparking both criticism and praise. While some states moved to bar same-sex marriage after Goodridge, public opinion began to shift in support of same-sex marriage and several other states moved to legalize it. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the right to same-sex marriage to all U.S. states and territories in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Marco V. Masotti

Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Marco V. Masotti is recognized as one of the country’s leading lawyers in the alternative asset management industry. For over 25 years, Marco has led and built the firm’s private funds team into one of the elite practices in the marketplace. He serves as Global Co-Head of the Private Funds Group and has served as a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Ranked Band 1 in Chambers, Marco is widely regarded as “one of the most exceptional lawyers in the area” for his “unparalleled experience and extraordinary reach in the fund formation space.” He is hailed as a “superstar” attorney who is “fantastic, dedicated to his clients and extremely experienced.” Marco has been recognized as a Law360 MVP in three areas, including Fund Formation, Private Equity and Asset Management. Marco has a unique profile in the marketplace as an adviser to a wide variety of investment funds, including private equity funds, credit funds, growth capital funds, hedge funds and real estate funds. Over the course of his career, he has raised billions of dollars for his clients, including: Apollo, Atlas, Avenue, Brighton Park, Centerbridge, Clearlake, EagleTree, Gamut, General Atlantic, King Street, KKR, Liberty Strategic Capital, Oak Hill, OceanSound, Roark, Sageview, Searchlight, SilverPoint, TowerBrook, Värde and Wellspring, among dozens of others. Marco is a sought-after thought leader in the alternative asset management industry. He frequently provides commentary on developments in the private funds marketplace and has been quoted extensively in the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, as well as providing guest commentary on television news networks, including Bloomberg Television. He has presented at numerous industry conferences. Marco is a member of the Economic Club of New York, and has served as Co-Chair of the Private Investment Funds Forum, Chair of the Private Investment Funds Subcommittee of the International Bar Association and Chair of the Private Investment Funds Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Marco is the controlling partner of the Sharks professional rugby team located in Durban, South Africa. Marco was awarded a Fulbright Placement Award upon graduating from the University of Natal School of Law.