Bill Hing, General Counsel and Board Member, founded the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in 1979 and served as volunteer Executive Director for its first two decades. A Professor at the University of California at Davis, School of Law, he is the author of Deporting Our Souls--Values, Morality, and Immigration Policy; Defining America Through Immigration Policy; Handling Immigration Cases; Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy; To Be An American; and co-author of numerous ILRC publications. He has extensive experience in working with immigrants of varied nationalities and is a nationally recognized expert in immigration and naturalization law. Bill volunteers on several Boards, including the Asian Law Caucus, Migration Policy Institute, and the ILRC.
Donald Ungar, Of Counsel to the ILRC, has been practicing immigration law since 1962. He has litigated numerous cases before the Board of Immigration Appeals, the federal district courts, courts of appeal and the United States Supreme Court. He was the recipient of the first Jack Wasserman Award for excellence in litigation by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, as well as the Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Award.
Eric Cohen, ILRC'S Executive Director, has been with the ILRC since 1988 and has extensive experience training attorneys, paralegals, community advocates, and organizers on a variety of immigration law, immigrants’ rights, and leadership development topics. Eric is a national expert on naturalization and citizenship law and is the primary author of the ILRC’s manual entitled, Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship: The Essential Legal Guide for Legal Practitioners. Eric has served as a liaison between community groups and CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) officials for the San Francisco Bay Area since 1994. Additionally, Eric helped develop ILRC's community model for effectively processing naturalization applications in groups and trained both legal workers and lay advocates in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and works with community organizers and others on voter education for naturalized citizens. Prior to working at the ILRC, Eric worked with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Labor Immigrant Assistance Project where he worked on legalization and union organizing campaigns. He is conversant in Spanish.
Shari Kurita is ILRC's Assistant Director. Shari first joined ILRC in 1998 as our Education Program Administrator, following her work at the University of Washington in the Office of Minority Affairs. With a background in education, and the daughter of a former public school teacher, she is particularly dedicated to our educational initiatives and focus. Named the Assistant Director in 2000, she has since expanded her focus to encompass budget, finance, human resources, agency and office administration, in addition to technological support, development and production for our manuals, trainings, and other services. While being a home-grown gal from Stockton of the Central Valley, Shari has enjoyed living in some of the world’s most beautiful places – Seattle, Zurich, and the Bay Area!
Sally Kinoshita, Deputy Director, joined the ILRC as a Staff Attorney in 2001. She is the author or co-author of a number of ILRC publications, including The VAWA Manual: Immigration Relief for Abused Immigrants; How to Obtain U Interim Relief: A Brief Manual for Advocates Assisting Immigrant Victims of Crimes; Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts; and Living in the United States: A Guide for Immigrant Youth. As a member of the Migration and Child Welfare National Network, an Advisory Board member of the National Network to End Violence Against Women and a technical assistance provider for the Asista national technical assistance project, Sally brings to the ILRC her expertise on immigration relief for abused immigrant women and children under Special immigrant Juvenile Status and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Prior to joining the ILRC, Sally worked extensively with the Southeast Asian immigrant community as a Staff Attorney at the Asian Law Caucus and as a founder of the Southeast Asian Task Force. As a resident of San Francisco's Mission District, she enjoys exploring her neighborhood with her family and dog. She is conversant in Spanish.
Kathy Brady, Senior Staff Attorney, has served with the ILRC since 1987 and has contributed to numerous ILRC projects. Her expertise includes the immigration consequences of criminal convictions; issues affecting immigrant children and mixed families; immigration consultant and consumer fraud; naturalization; family immigration; legal status for immigrant victims of domestic violence through the Violence Against Women Act provisions (VAWA); and trial skills. She is the primary author of Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit (formerly California Criminal Law and Immigration), and for many years was co-author of the section on defending noncitizens in the CEB manual California Criminal Law: Procedure and Practice. She also is a co-author of the ILRC's Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and the Immigration Benchbook for Juvenile and Family Courts. She has helped found coalitions and projects to address these issues, including serving as a co-founder of the Defending Immigrants Partnership and the Immigrant Justice Network. She authored briefs in key Ninth Circuit cases on immigration and crimes. In 2007, she received the Carol King award for advocacy from the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. Prior to working at the ILRC, Kathy was in private practice with the immigration firm of Park and Associates. She is currently a Commissioner to the ABA Commission on Immigration. She is conversant in Spanish.
Mark Silverman is the Director of Immigration Policy at the ILRC, where he has worked as an attorney since 1983. Mark has done over 400 presentations and trainings for immigrant communities throughout California. He has also made numerous presentations on various aspects of the law to attorneys and other legal workers. He is the author and co-author of more than ten ILRC publications on different aspects of immigration law, including Asylum and Related Immigration Protections (formerly Winning Asylum Cases); Winning NACARA Suspension Cases; and publications on family visa, Temporary Protected Status, pro bono asylum programs, and the hardship requirement for waivers and cancellation. Mark's hobbies include increasing his repertoire of (what some people consider) jokes through disciplined study of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and other contributions to the highest traditions of American culture. He is a fluent Spanish speaker.
Nora Privitera, Director of Provider Fraud Project and Lead Attorney of the Day, was in private practice for over 12 years, including 8 years as a sole practitioner, before joining the ILRC as a part-time attorney in 2000. As a private attorney, Nora gained extensive practical experience in many areas of immigration law, and has 2 published winning opinions concerning asylum and due process issues in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. These experiences serve her well in her capacity as the ILRC's main Attorney of the Day (AOD). Nora also directs ILRC's Provider Fraud Project and has testified as an expert witness in cases involving immigration fraud. In addition, Nora has conducted ILRC trainings and has assisted in the revision of many ILRC publications. She is conversant in Spanish and Italian.
Angie Junck joined the ILRC in 2005 as a New Voices Fellow and became a staff attorney in 2007. She works on the relationship between immigration and criminal law and is a co-author of ILRC's publication, Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit: The Impact of Crimes under California and Other State Laws. Her efforts to mitigate the difficult immigration consequences for criminal convictions of immigrants is at the core of the ILRC's Defending Immigrants Project to assist public defenders and the Immigrant Justice Network, a project to build a movement to shift public perception of immigrants in the criminal justice system. Angie is a co-chair of the Detention Watch Network's Public Awareness Committee and is on the Advisory Board of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Prior to joining the ILRC, she worked on post-conviction relief for immigrants at the Law Offices of Norton Tooby and advocated on behalf of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence as the co-coordinator of Free Battered Women and a member of the Habeas Project. She is a proficient Spanish speaker.
Lourdes Martinez, an immigrant herself, spent her childhood in central Mexico before moving with her family to the United States. Before joining ILRC, she worked as an immigration attorney at the Tahirih Justice Center in the DC metropolitan area, where she represented immigrant women and girls survivors of gender-based violence on immigration matters. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Rice University and her Juris Doctor from the George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC, where she was awarded the JB & Maurice Shapiro Public Service Fellowship for her dedication to public interest law. While in law school, she worked on international human rights litigation involving cases from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean both, with the International Human Rights Clinic at GWU and as a law clerk with the Center for Justice and International Law in San Jose, Costa Rica. She also worked with the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition, providing legal services and Know Your Rights presentations for immigrant detainees in Virginia. Finally, she spent a year with the Public Defender Service of Washington, DC, directly representing criminal defendants before the U.S. Parole Commission and drafting briefs for criminal court. Lourdes began her career in immigration law as a paralegal at Tindall & Foster, PC in Houston, Texas. She is fluent in Spanish and French.
Jonathan Huang has been the Information and Technology Manager for the ILRC since 2000, after working for Domino Computers. He is responsible for managing all technology and computer networking systems for the organization. In addition, he also brings his expertise in designing and updating the ILRC website. Jonathan holds a MS in Computer Science from San Francisco State University.
Deirdre O’Shea recently joined the ILRC as our Foundation Relations Manager. She returns to the Bay Area after over six years working on organizational and funding development with social services and human rights organizations in Cambodia. She enjoys writing and administering grants, as well as gardening, riding her bike and cooking. She is conversant in Khmer.
Chris Godwin, Annual Giving and Events Manager, joined the ILRC in September 2008 having recently relocated to San Francisco from Baltimore, Maryland. His work focuses on fund development for the organization particularly in the areas of individual donor acquisition and cultivation and management of the ILRC's annual Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Awards Dinner. Working closely with ILRC's Executive Director and Board, Chris is charged with implementing the organization's development plan. He holds degrees in paralegal studies and political science. Chris brings 15-plus years of experience in the areas of law, government and nonprofit fund development. As a paralegal, Chris has worked in the areas of plaintiff litigation, medical malpractice defense, termination of parental rights with a local department of social services, and predatory and deceptive real estate practices research. As a development officer, he has worked to raise money for a variety of nonprofit groups in such areas as domestic violence/sexual assault, holistic health and spirituality, community development through the arts, and community lawyering.
Linda Mogannam, Marketing Manager, joined the ILRC in January 2012. Linda's focus is on increasing brand awareness of the ILRC among immigration practitioners and reaching new target audiences. Her work involves promotion of ILRC's wide array of training manuals, live seminars, and webinar offerings. Working with the Deputy Director and other staff members, she utilizes marketing best practices to implement various online and traditional marketing campaigns. Linda holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University, and is currently enrolled in the Master of Public Administration program at Notre Dame de Namur University. She brings 15-plus years of experience in the area of marketing communications from a variety of for-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to her professional experience, Linda has volunteered for a number of nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area, providing assistance with event planning, media relations, and collateral development. She is a native San Franciscan and conversant in Arabic.
Byron Spicer has been with the ILRC as the Finance Assistant since May 2006. He has 12 years of experience in bookkeeping, office administration, and program management. At the ILRC, he manages the day-to-day finances and also plays a key role in re-designing the ILRC website. Byron is a native of San Francisco, graduating from Mission High School and University of California at Berkeley. In addition to working at the ILRC, he also dedicates his time to his professional art career.
Shellie Stortz has been the ILRC's Finance Manager since October 2004. After majoring in Business Accounting in Houston, Texas, she worked as a Public Accountant for 12 years and also managed her own resale store in San Francisco for 6 years, prior to joining the ILRC. Shellie decided to re-enter the accounting field in the nonprofit sector where she discovered a natural fit to her personality and interests. During her free time, she enjoys gardening, quilting, and cooking.
Timothy Sheehan is a familiar face to the ILRC, as he was a Program Assistant for five years until 2006, and returned in August 2007 after living one year in Fukuoka, Japan. Now as Program Coordinator, he serves as a liaison for numerous different projects and programs within the ILRC, such as the anti-fraud comic books, Know Your Rights campaign, and publication updates. Tim is originally from Tennessee; however, he has made the Bay Area his home since 1995, currently residing in Oakland.