The Foundation

	President Charles M. Sprock, Jr. (“Casey”) is a partner with the firm Baldwin & Sutphen, LLP, Syracuse, NY, where he focuses in the areas of Real Estate Law, Estate Planning & Asset Protection, Trust & Estate Administration and Adoptions. A large percentage of his client base is comprised of non-traditional families. He is a graduate of Colgate University (B.A., Honors in Philosophy) and Notre Dame Law School. He is also an adjunct faculty member with three colleges at Syracuse University (the College of Law, the Maxwell School and University College) as well as Colgate University. His teaching and course designs have earned him several awards. He advises the College of Law’s gay/straight alliance (Outlaw) and coaches the group’s Moot Court Team, which competes at UCLA’s Williams Institute’s Annual Sexual Orientation and the Law National Moot Court Competition. In 2006, his team won the competition. Mr. Sprock also serves on the boards of United Way of Central New York and SAGE Upstate.
	Past President Skip Horne is the Director of Graduate Programs & Continuing Education at the University of San Diego School of Law. Prior to USD, he was Global Recruiting Manager for Latham & Watkins LLP where he supported the firm’s efforts in diversity hiring, law school and LLM outreach, and international hiring. He has also served in various administrative leadership roles at Santa Clara University School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law and the Darden School at the University of Virginia. Skip was President of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) in 2002-03 and has the honor of being the association’s first openly gay President. He has also taught public speaking and managerial communications on the graduate and undergraduate levels. Skip earned a BSFS in International Politics from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He and his partner, Andy Ceperley, live in San Diego where they both perform with the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus.
	President-Elect | Secretary Todd Brown is the Managing Attorney of several Liberty Mutual Insurance Group Staff Counsel offices: The Law Offices of Brown & Black in Boston, Massachusetts and the Law Offices of Brown, Sherry & Geller in Raynham, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. He was admitted to practice in 1989 and joined Liberty Mutual the same year. In addition to managing the offices, Attorney Brown practices in the areas of general liability, construction, SIU, premises liabiliy and multiparty complex litigation. He has significant experience handling complex and high exposure environmental, restaurant, subrogation and transportation matters. Attorney Brown received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from The George Washington University where he spent a year abroad at the London School of Economics. He received his Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law. He is a member of the state bars of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Arizona. He is a past or present member of The Massachusetts AIDS Action Committee, Mass Equlity, the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Bar Association and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians an Gays Everywhere). He also serves as an Overseer to the Board of Directors of the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. He is married to Rob Cullinane and has two teenaged boys.
	Treasurer Joseph A. Vallo is Litigation Of Counsel with Greenberg Traurig’s New York and White Plains offices. Joseph focuses his practice on securities arbitration, mediation and litigation and also has wide-ranging experience in retail brokerage compliance in domestic and international markets. Before joining Greenberg Traurig, Joseph served as Senior Vice President and Senior Litigation Counsel for Wachovia Securities, LLC, n.k.a Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC, where he supervised the firm’s major litigations and arbitrations. Previously, he served as the Senior Vice President and Director of Compliance for TD Waterhouse Group, Inc. and the Divisional Compliance Director at Salomon Smith Barney, Inc. where he was also the Director of International Private Client Group Compliance. Joseph is a 1979 graduate of SUNY Cortland and a 1984 graduate of New York Law School. He is admitted to practice in New York and Florida. Joseph also serves as Vice Chair of the SUNY Cortland Foundation Board of Directors. Joseph lives in New York with his partner, Mark and their daughter, Emma.
	At-Large Board Member Lawrie E. Demorest is a member of Alston & Bird’s Toxic Tort team and focuses her practice on complex litigation including mass torts, class actions and commercial matters. Ms. Demorest has experience defending toxic tort, medical device and pharmaceutical and consumer products cases in a variety of jurisdictions around the country, all of which involve extensive work with expert witnesses in various fields of science and medicine. She has served on several national trial and litigation teams including multi-district litigation and class actions, and has tried over 55 cases to juries with a highly favorable success rate. Ms. Demorest’s representation has encompassed pre-litigation counseling, crisis management, developing and implementing strategies to shut down pending and potential individual and class actions, managing local counsel and mass trial dockets, and effecting settlements through various forms of alternative dispute resolution and non-litigation solutions. Additional consumer products and toxic tort cases Ms. Demorest has defended include representation of a national railroad in the defense of solvent-related injuries by railroad workers, landlords sued for lead paint-related injuries, an optical solutions manufacturer and food suppliers. Ms. Demorest has also defended medical malpractice cases for 25 years. During that time she has represented hospitals, clinics, physicians of various specialties, nurses and other health care providers on a breadth of issues. She served as Northeast and Southeast Regional Counsel to a national owner of behavioral health facilities, managing and directing their litigation in 10 states. Ms. Demorest has served on the faculty of the Atlanta Institute of Trial Advocacy and is a past member of the Joseph Henry Lumpkin American Inn of Court. She is a member of the Defense Research Institute and a lecturer on topics common to product liability and medical malpractice litigation. Ms. Demorest also served on the editorial board of the journal Medical Malpractice Law and Strategy. She is a member of the board of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
	Laura Maechtlen is a former Past President of the LGBT Bar Board of Directors. She joined the LGBT Bar Board of Directors as the affiliate representative for Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians in 2004. She has assumed responsibilities as the Membership Chair and most recently the President-Elect. Laura graduated from the Boston University School of Law after attending the University of Colorado at Boulder for undergraduate studies in Music and Political Science. She works at Seyfarth Shaw LLP in labor and employment litigation in their San Francisco, California offices.
	John V. Treviño, Jr. is an in-house attorney in the Litigation Section at American Airlines, Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. At American, John manages a wide variety of commercial litigation matters for the company. In addition, John is responsible for developing and implementing all global privacy and data protection initiatives for American. Prior to joining American, John practiced with the firm Beirne, Maynard and Parson, L.L.P. in Houston, Texas from 1999 to 2005. He was also law clerk to the Honorable Hilda G. Tagle, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division 1998-1999. John is a member of the State Bar of Texas, Dallas Bar Association, Dallas Hispanic Bar Association, and the State Bar of California. John received his J. D. from the University of Texas in 1997. John also received his B.A. from the University of Texas in 1994. Prior to law school, John worked as a communications-computer systems manager and military training instructor in the U.S. Air Force.
	Brian Esser is a member of the Litigation group in the New York office of Baker & Hostetler LLP.  He focuses his practice on complex and general civil litigation and corporate investigations, with a particular emphasis on electronic discovery and technology. Brian has worked on a range of investigations and monitorships on subjects as diverse as anti-money laundering, economic and trade sanctions, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations, export controls, channel stuffing, New York State ethics laws and Medicare fraud and abuse. His representative litigation matters include civil RICO claims brought against insurance companies, tobacco manufacturers, foreign sovereigns and government contractors, as well as breach of contract, noncompete clauses and unfair competition cases. Brian currently coordinates discovery for the over one thousand avoidance actions initiated by the court-appointed trustee under the SIPA liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.  In addition to his main practice, Brian maintains an active pro bono practice that encompasses litigation, appellate and legislative work in the areas of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and HIV status, reproductive rights, asylum and the death penalty. While at his previous law firm Arnold & Porter, Brian served as a “loaned associate” to the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, where he represented low-income tenants in matters before the D.C. Superior Court and in administrative hearings before the D.C. Housing Authority. From 2000 to 2001 he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Rafael Diaz of the D.C. Superior Court. Brian graduated magna cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University in 1997. He and his husband Kevin O’Leary have a son through open adoption.

Past Foundation Board Presidents

2009-2012	John T. Hendricks
2007-2009	Scott Morgan
2005-2007	Joni M. Thome