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PLS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BIOGRAPHIES OF PLS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Officers
John S. Kiernan, Chairman
Mr. Kiernan joined the PLS Board of Directors as its Chair in April 2008. He received his B.A. in 1976 magna cum laude in English from Harvard and his J.D. in 1980 magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. From 1980-81, Mr. Kiernan served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Walter R. Mansfield, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1981, Mr. Kiernan joined Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP and became a partner in 1988.
Mr. Kiernan is also Co-Chair of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (director since 1996, Executive Committee since 1997), director of Legal Services for New York City since 1989 (Chair, 2003-06; Vice-Chair, 1993-2003), Chair of Volunteers of Legal Service (President, 2002-07, director since 1998), a director of the Justice Resource Center since 1994 (Chair, 1995-2003), co-founder of the New York City Bankruptcy Assistance Project (and a director since 2005), and a director of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (“CPR”) since 2007. He was a director of New York Alliance for the Public Schools from 1992-1995, a director of Practicing Attorneys for Law Students from 1993-2007, and trustee of the Pelham Art Center from 1988-1996. He was the Mayor of Pelham Manor, NY from 1999-2001, having served as its Village Attorney from 1990-1993 and as a Village Trustee from 1993-1999. He also served from 1988-2003 as a volunteer coordinator for the AmeriCares/HomeFront home rehabilitation project and is a director of the United Way of Pelham, NY.
William Gibney, Secretary
 William (Bill) Gibney, is the Director of The Legal Aid Society Criminal Practice Special Litigation Unit. In that capacity he has conducted class action litigation against the City and the State regarding sentencing and jail time credit for mentally ill prisoners. He teaches sentencing law to attorneys at Legal Aid and has taught CLE classes in sentencing as a part of the First Department Office of Court Administration (OCA) training program. As an attorney with Legal Aid, he participated in class action litigation regarding conditions in the New York City pre-arraignment holding cells and the release of protesters during the Republican National Convention. He was part of a group that lobbied for the 2004 and 2005 drug law reforms.
Until 1998, Mr. Gibney managed the New York City office of Prisoners’ Legal Services. He participated in litigation regarding HIV infected prisoners, mentally ill prisoners in disciplinary isolation, prison disciplinary issues, and guard brutality. He was a primary advocate for the passage of medical parole law and worked on a film, “Let Me Say Goodbye” regarding the need for medical parole in New York. While at Prisoners Legal Services, one of his first legislative advocacy projects concerned Governor Cuomo’s Sentencing Commission.
He is a graduate of the Dickinson School of Law and a recipient of a Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship.
Dorothy Keller, Secretary
Dorothy Keller joined the PLS Board in 1985. She has a long history of involvement in criminal justice issues beginning in the 1960’s in Buffalo, NY where she served as Chair for several years on the Criminal Justice Committee of the Niagara Frontier Branch of the New York Civil Liberties Union. During that time, she participated in the NYS Inquiry on Parole and served as the Western New York Researcher Coordinator. She also worked with the Attica Defense Committee doing research for the defense attorney on parole matters. She served on the State Board of Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union from 1970 to 1985.
After moving to New York City in 1978 to attend law school, she worked with the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society. Her first job as a lawyer was as General Counsel to the Harlem Restoration Project which had a program for ex-offender re-direction in a project which was renovating and managing neglected buildings in Harlem.
In 1994, she joined the firm of Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Goidel, P.C. as a specialist in low-income and supportive housing and became a partner in 2006.
A good part of her practice is with supportive housing not-for-profit organizations who provide not only permanent housing, but also programmatic assistance to ex-offenders.
BOARD MEMBERS BIOS
James W. B. Benkard
John Bracken
John Bracken was "recruited" as a PLS Board member by John Dunne, Esq. (a PLS Board Member) in 1996 and joined the PLS Board of Directors in 1997-98. He received his BA from Hobart College in 1960 and his JD from Fordham Law School in 1963. He served as Captain in the United States Marine Corps from 1964-1967. Mr. Bracken has been engaged in the private practice of law since 1967 and is currently a senior partner at Bracken& Margolin, LLP, a small firm of 10 lawyers engaged principally in litigation.
He is a former President of the Suffolk County Criminal Bar Association, former President of the Suffolk County Bar Association, former President of the New York State Bar Association and a member of its House of Delegates. He is a member of the American Bar Association and a former member of its House of Delegates. He is a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been a frequent lecturer for the New York State Bar Association, the Suffolk Academy of Law and the Alexander Hamilton Inn of Court where he also serves on its Executive Committee. He is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Empire National Bank. He has been a member of the Governor's Judicial Selection Committee for the Second Judicial Dept. since 1983. He resides in Smithtown, New York with his wife, Michelle.
Mr. Bracken joined the PLS Board because he believe that our "rule of law" binds all of us including those who are most vulnerable and without a voice, namely prisoners within our correctional facilities.
Thomas J. Curran
Tom graduated from Georgetown University (A.B., 1986) and Fordham University School of Law (J.D., 1989). After law school, Tom practiced at two large international firms from 1989 through 1995. In addition to practicing as part of those firms’ white collar criminal defense departments, he litigated a case on behalf of a person sentenced to life in New York State Prison as part of the United Stated District Court for the Southern District of New York’s pro bono program. From 1995 through 2001, Tom served as an Assistant District Attorney under Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney of New York County. Since returning to private practice, Tom’s practice has been focused upon white collar criminal defense, internal corporate investigations, and regulatory compliance. He is currently a partner in the firm of Peckar & Abramson, P.C. in New York, New York.
Tom is a regular guest, commentator on criminal law matters for various media outlets, including CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Bloomberg. Tom serves on various civic and bar committees, including as a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Committee on City Marshals, as co-Founder and co-chair of the Morgenthau Alumni Group, as Chair of the Criminal Advocacy Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and as a member of the Character and Fitness Committee for the First Department.
Tom is the son of former PLS Chair Paul J. Curran. Tom shares the profound conviction of his father that fundamental justice requires that the prisoners in our correctional institutions have access to quality legal services.
John R. Dunne
John Dunne was one of the founding directors of PLS following the 1971 riot at Attica State Prison. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Yale Law School. He presently serves as Senior Counsel to the Albany law firm of Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna. From 1966 to 1989, he was a member of the New York State Senate. In 1971, when the Attica uprising occurred, Senator. Dunne was Chairman of the Committee on Crime and Corrections of the New York State Senate where he served as Deputy Majority Leader. Subsequent to leaving the State Senate, Mr. Dunne was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. He also chaired the Board of Directors of the New York State Office of Capital Defender.
Mr. Dunne views his service on the PLS Board as a means of delivering some measure of justice for those who are paying their debt to society and for their families who suffer so much pain.
James F. Gill
James Gill is a graduate of the College of Holy Cross and Fordham University Law School where he served as Managing Editor of the Fordham Law Review in 1956. He is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York County Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Federal Bar Council. He practices in the areas of labor and regulatory affairs. He is a longtime civic leader and prominent member of numerous municipal and state committees and institutions. He served as Chairman on Governor George Pataki’s First Department, Departmental Judicial Screening Committee and was a member of Senator Alphonse M. D’Amato’s Judicial Screening Committee from 1994-1998.
Honorable Kristen Booth Glen
Judge Glen joined the Board in 1996 while she was still Dean of CUNY School of Law.
She started her career as a civil rights lawyer after graduating from Columbia Law School and clerking for the Second Circuit at Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard, where she litigated a number of prisoners' rights cases, most notably Sostre v. Rockefeller (solitary confinement; retaliation for First Amendment activity) and Gomez v. Miller, a case involving misuse of penal facilities for persons found incompetent to stand trial which was successful in the U.S. Supreme Court. She was elected as a civil court judge in 1980 and elected to New York State Supreme Court in 1986. As a judge, she wrote major, cutting-edge decisions in a wide range of areas including AIDS, sexual harassment, the rights of the physically and mentally challenged, the elderly, and on constitutional issues such as free speech. A founder of the Women's Law Clinic at New York University, she has been a legal educator in various law schools for more than twenty years.
In 1995, she was appointed Dean of the City University of New York School of Law. In 1998, Glen was named Law School Dean of the Year by the National Association for Public Interest Law and in 1999, she was honored by the National Lawyer's Guild.
Judge Glen notes that coming to PLS was really a return to her roots, and to issues about which she has always cared deeply.
Wilda Hess
David C. Leven
David Leven has been on the PLS board since 2003. He is a graduate of the University of Rochester and Syracuse University College of Law. From 1969 to 1973, he was a staff attorney and deputy director of Monroe County Legal Assistance Corporation and between 1973 and 1979, he was the Executive Director. Between 1979 and 1999, he served as Executive Director of PLS. Since 2002, he has been the Executive Director of Compassion & Choices of New York. The mission of Compassion & Choices is to improve care and expand choice at the end of life and provide high quality counseling, support and advocacy services to the terminally ill and family members and to those planning for the end of life.
David notes that it is important for him to be on the  PLS board because he is deeply committed to ensuring that NYS prisoners’ receive high quality legal services and that PLS functions as well as possible with adequate funding. Because of his past experience, he believes that he can contribute constructively.
Robert D. Lubash
Bob Lubash became a PLS Board Member in 1998. Mr. Lubash is a native New Yorker who graduated from Washington College. He has had an extensive Wall Street career, including becoming a New York Stock Exchange Member in 1962 and Managing Partner of a NYSE Member firm. After retirement he began his second career as a published writer and photographer. He also serves as an Officer of Antech Leasing Corp., Universal Petroleum, Inc., and the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame. As an ex-offender, who served time in the New York State prison system in the early 1980’s, Mr. Lubash has significant insight with respect to the issues that many PLS clients face. Because of his experience, Mr. Lubash brings a unique and critical perspective to the PLS Board.
Peter J. Powers
Eric A. Seiff
Eric Seiff, board member of PLS since 1989, is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University Law School. Since 1980, he has been a member of the firm of Seiff, Kretz & Abercrombie. He served as Assistant District Attorney in New York County from 1962 to 1967, Assistant Counsel to the Agency for International Development from 1967 to 1972, General Counsel to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society of New York City from 1974-1975, Special Assistant Attorney General in 1975 where he served on Governor Carey’s task force, directed by the Honorable Bernard S. Meyer, which investigated and publicly reported on the misconduct of the Attica prosecutors, a member of the New York State Investigation Commission from 1975 to 1979, serving as Chairman from 1978-1979.
Victoria Smith
Steven Zeidman
Steven Zeidman is a Professor at CUNY School of Law and Director of their Criminal Defense Clinic. Prior to CUNY, he was the Executive Director of The Fund for Modern Courts. Professor Zeidman began his legal career at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Division as a staff and then a supervising attorney. He has been involved in many advisory and oversight committees, including the Jury Trial Project, the Indigent Defense Organization Oversight Committee, the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services, the Sentencing Reform Commission, and the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary. He has lectured widely about and written several articles in the areas of criminal justice and judicial selection. Professor Zeidman received his JD from Duke University School of Law.
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