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Our People

STAFF

Doug Kendall: Doug is founder and President of the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), a think tank, law firm and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution’s text and history. He previously founded and directed Community Rights Counsel (CRC), CAC’s predecessor organization. Doug has represented clients in state and federal appellate courts around the country and he has co-authored more than a dozen briefs filed before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is co-author of three books and lead author of numerous reports and studies. He launched and helped direct (with Earthjustice) the Judging the Environment Project, a comprehensive effort to highlight the environmental stakes in the future of the U.S. Supreme Court and appointments to the federal bench. Doug has appeared on television programs including Nightline, 20/20, Fox News Sunday, and World News Tonight, and radio broadcasts on NPR, CBS News, and Air America. His academic writings have appeared scholarly journals including the Virginia Law Review. His commentary has run in The New Republic, The American Prospect, Slate, and dozens of major papers including The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Los Angeles Times. Doug is a blogger on Huffington Post. Doug received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia. To view a list of Doug's writings, speeches and publications, click here.

Judith E. Schaeffer: Judith is Vice President of Constitutional Accountability Center. She most recently served as the Legal Director of People For the American Way, where she focused on constitutional and civil rights issues, federal and state legislative activity, and judicial nominations. She has a particular expertise in First Amendment issues and has litigated numerous cases involving religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Previously, Judith was a partner at Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin and a law clerk for Chief Judge Joseph S. Lord, III of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judith has served as a member of the District of Columbia Bar’s Task Force on Sexual Orientation and the Legal Workplace, and as a mediator in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She has also served on the boards of directors of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Women's Legal Defense Fund (now the National Partnership for Women and Families). Judith is a recipient of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Attorney Appreciation Award, the Whitman-Walker Clinic Gene Frey Memorial Award for Community Service, and the Women's Legal Defense Fund Volunteer Attorney Award. Judith has appeared on television and radio programs nationwide and been quoted frequently in the print media. She has blogged for Huffington Post and other sites and her writings have been published in USA Today, Congress Monthly, the National Council of Jewish Women Journal and various other publications. Judith received her J.D. from Yale Law School and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and she was a Winston Churchill Scholar at Cambridge University.

Elizabeth B. Wydra: Elizabeth is Constitutional Accountability Center’s Chief Counsel. She joined CAC from private practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in San Francisco, where she was an attorney working with former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan in the firm’s Supreme Court/appellate practice. Previously, Elizabeth was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center appellate litigation clinic, a law clerk for Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and a lawyer at Shaw Pittman, a law firm in Washington DC. She is a frequent contributor to the American Bar Association’s Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases and she has served as a legal expert for ABC News. Elizabeth is a graduate of Yale Law School.

David H. Gans:  David is the Director of the Constitutional Accountability Center's Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program.  He joined CAC after serving as Program Director of Cardozo Law School's Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, and as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where he worked with Bert Neuborne on appellate briefs in constitutional cases involving the First Amendment and voting rights. Previously, David was an Acting Assistant Professor at NYU School of Law and practiced law at Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady, PC, where he litigated a wide range of constitutional and civil rights cases.  David has also served as an attorney fellow for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and as a law clerk for the Hon. Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.   He is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he served as an editor on the Yale Law Review.  His academic writings have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Boston University Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the George Washington Law Review.  Before receiving his law degree, David worked as a paralegal for the American Civil Liberties Union, where he helped Kathryn Kolbert prepare the briefs and argument in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.  In 1993, David and Ms. Kolbert co-authored an article in the Temple Law Review titled Responding to Planned Parenthood v. Casey: Establishing Neutrality Principles in State Constitutional Law.  David received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University.

Hannah McCrea: As Online Communications Director, Hannah is responsible for updating and managing CAC's two blogs, Text & History and Warming Law, and for attracting and tracking media coverage. Prior to joining CAC she helped co-found the political blog The Seminal, and before that worked as a contributing researcher for the WiserEarth project of the Natural Capital Institute. Hannah recently completed her Masters degree in Environmental Policy & Regulation at the London School of Economics, and holds a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.

Margaret Kroll: As Office Manager, Margaret is responsible for updating CAC's website, tracking media coverage, and managing the daily operations of the office. Prior to joining CAC, Margaret worked at the American Enterprise Institute and as an intern for Senator Debbie Stabenow. Margaret received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and studied at King's College in London, England.

Xan White: As Research and Special Projects Associate, Xan is responsible for assisting CAC’s lawyers with legal and historical research and contributing content to CAC’s blogs. Xan graduated from Yale College in May 2009 with distinction in history and wrote his senior thesis on the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and the ratification of the 14th Amendment. 

CONSULTANTS

Jim Ryan: Jim is Academic Associate Dean and Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law, land use law, law and education, and local government law, among other topics. Jim is a co-author of redefining federalism and, as a founding member of CRC’s Board of Directors, Jim has contributed to a number of other CRC books, reports, and opinion pieces. Jim left CRC’s board in order to work for CRC in an expanded role as a consultant to our Judging the Environment and Redefining Federalism projects. Jim’s legal writings have appeared in major law journals including the Yale, University of Michigan, Virginia, and New York University law reviews. His opinion pieces have run in papers including The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. After graduating law school, Jim clerked for the Honorable J. Clifford Wallace, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then for the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States. Jim received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he served on the managing board of the Virginia Law Review.

Mike Casey: Mike is founder and President of Tigercomm, Inc, a strategic communications firm that helps non-profits run successful media operations. Mike has served as Vice President for Public Affairs for Environmental Working Group, Media Director for National Environmental Trust, and Communications Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. At 26, Mike was the youngest Communications Director in the U.S. Senate, and his boss, Senator Donald Riegle, credits him with building the Senate’s “most aggressive communications operation.” Mike has provided our organization with communications assistance since CRC’s inception in 1997, helping us generate hundreds of stories on television, national radio, and major papers across the country. He started Tigercomm in order to expand the communications assistance he could provide to groups like CAC.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Eldon ("Took") H. Crowell: Took is a founding partner of Crowell & Moring, a Washington DC-based law firm employing more than 270 lawyers. An authority on Government Contract and International Laws, he has written and lectured extensively on these subjects, and has represented foreign and domestic corporations in a wide range of problems, both in litigation and counseling, in the United States. He was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law and at The George Washington University National Law Center. Took graduated from Princeton University, cum laude, and the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was on the Editorial Board of the Virginia Law Review. A Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, he is a member of the American, Federal, and District of Columbia bar associations. He has served as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and is a Fellow of the National Contract Management Association , as well as the recipient of their 1992 Roback Award. He is the President of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Public Interest Law Fellowships for Equal Justice.

The Honorable Patricia M. Wald: Judge Wald has focused her career on public interest law, working as an attorney with the Mental Health Law Project and the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Neighborhood Legal Services Program, and the Office of Criminal Justice at the Department of Justice. Judge Wald also served as co-director of the Ford Foundation Drug Abuse Research Project. In 1977, she was appointed Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice, and in 1979, she was nominated by President Jimmy Carter, and confirmed by the Senate, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The first woman ever appointed to the D.C. Circuit, Judge Wald served for 20 years, five of which she spent as Chief Judge. Upon her retirement, Judge Wald accepted an appointment to serve on the 14-member panel of judges of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, where she spent the next two years hearing cases on wartime atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Judge Wald serves on the Open Society Institute's Justice Initiative Board (2002-present), including two years as Chair (2002-2004), and is a member of the American Philosophical Society (2000-present). She is a member of the American Law Institute (1973-present), was elected to its council (1978-present), served as a vice president (1988-1993 and 1993-1998), and is an advisor to the Model Penal Code, Sentencing Project (2001-present). Judge Wald was a member of the President’s Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S. Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004-2005), and has served on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI) (1994-1999). She is a graduate of Connecticut College for Women and Yale Law School.

Douglas T. Kendall: Doug is the Constitutional Accountability Center’s founder and President.

David Stern: David is the Executive Director of Equal Justice Works, a national coalition of public interest organizations that helps promote law careers in social justice. He graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1985 and clerked for two federal judges in Baltimore. He then worked for a small public interest law firm that represented whistleblowers in government and private industry, as well as individuals discriminated against on the basis of their sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, or age.