GAAP - Key Persons
Aaron Rappaport currently teaches criminal law and related courses at UC Hastings College of the Law. He attended Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in engineering, and Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and the Yale Law & Policy Review. After graduating from law school, Professor Rappaport held several positions within the federal government, ultimately working in each of its branches. He first clerked for the Honorable Stephen Breyer, then Chief Judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Entering the political fray, he served for three years as Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, and then, during the budget battle of 1996, joined the Clinton Administration to serve as an Assistant Director of the National Economic Council. From 1996 to 1998, Professor Rappaport was a member of the General Counsel's staff of the Federal Communications Commission, where he represented the FCC in litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals. In addition to his government work, Professor Rappaport has been co-editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, a criminal sentencing journal, since 1996.
Anne Fokstuen graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in economics and has an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration. Prior to attending law school she worked as an equity analyst on Wall Street and as a reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal. Anne received her J.D. from UC Hastings College of the Law in 2003. She spent six years as a public defender representing indigent clients in criminal court in Marin and in Solano and recently made the transition to family law.
Bob Capistrano is a dedicated and long standing GAAP board member who has served on its board for more than 20 years. He is currently the litigation director at Bay Area Legal Aid.
Christina Terplan is a 2003 graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law and an associate attorney with Clyde & Company. She first became involved with GAAP when she began volunteering during her first year at law school, and subsequently served as a student co-president during her second and third years at Hastings.
Cody Barkley originally joined the GAAP board in 2005 and served as treasurer in 2006. After living abroad for 3 years, he rejoined the board in 2011 when he returned to San Francisco. A native of Texas, he currently works as an analyst for Blurb, a company that enables people to make books. Previously, he worked for Hewlett-Packard as a financial analyst in several businesses in several countries. Cody is interested in helping other non-profits, as well, with their financial and analytical needs.
Eileen M. Bissen received her B.A. from UC Davis and her J.D. from UC Hastings College of the Law. She currently works at Public Employees Union, Local One. Prior to joining Local One, Eileen was a partner at a union-side labor law firm in San Francisco. While attending law school, she served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Women's Law Journal and received the Public Interest Law Certificate in recognition of her public interest service. Eileen is a regular volunteer attorney with the Legal Aid Society, Employment Law Center's Workers' Rights Clinic. In 2010, she was appointed by the Board of Governors to serve a three-year term on the California State Bar's Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services which seeks to identify, develop, and support improvements in the delivery of legal services to low-and moderate-income individuals in California.
Gary Lewis is the Executive Director at GAAP. Gary came to San Francisco in 2001 after receiving a BS in Chemistry from the University of Leeds, UK. Gary spent several years working in biotech before returning to school to pursue a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Gary's commitment to social justice blossomed during his time at Hastings. Gary was a member of the Social Justice concentration; a volunteer and then leader of the Homeless Legal Services student organization; Community Outreach Editor for the Hastings Race and Poverty Journal; and an intern with the Homeless Advocacy Project, Bay Area Legal Aid and Tenants Together. Gary was also a student in the Civil Justice Clinic, receiving the Clinical Legal Education Association's Outstanding Clinical Student Award for his work assisting the Tenderloin community's efforts to organize in response to proposed large-scale development in the neighborhood. Gary also teaches a seminar, entitled "Public Health and Homelessness" at UC Hastings.
James Conger graduated from Duke University in 1998 with a B.A. in History, and earned his Juris Doctorate from UC Hastings College of the Law in 2004. Mr. Conger volunteered at GAAP during the three years he was at law school. Since then, Mr. Conger has worked for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, representing indigent clients in criminal defense matters. Mr. Conger owns all four Lethal Weapon movies and once ate a fried grasshopper.
Job Titles:
- Staff Attorney
- Volunteer Coordinator
Kendra Amick is the Staff Attorney and volunteer coordinator at GAAP. Kendra graduated from University of California, Hastings College of the Law and became a full-time staff member at GAAP in 2013. However, Kendra has been with GAAP since 2010, when she started volunteering at GAAP as part-time student advocate. Kendra's dedication to fighting issues of economic and social injustice began while attending Scripps College in Claremont, CA. Upon graduating with a degree in Politics and French, she decided to refocus her advocacy efforts on local issues affecting her hometown - San Francisco. After spending several months as a community organizer with a small grassroots nonprofit, she applied to law school so that she could advocate for homeless and indigent clients more directly. While at Hastings, Kendra concentrated in Social Justice Lawyering and participated in two clinical programs at the Hastings Civil Justice Clinic. Kendra also interned with the East Bay Community Law Center in their Welfare Law and Policy clinic and worked on policy advocacy with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Kendra is also a member of the San Francisco Shelter Monitoring Committee
Leah Spero is an attorney in private practice in San Francisco and specializes in criminal and civil appeals. She was formerly the group leader of civil staff attorneys at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and served as a law clerk at the court. Before that, Leah was an associate in the general litigation and employment law groups at Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, where she was also a volunteer for the Homeless Legal Services project. She received her B.A. from Duke University and her J.D. from UC Hastings College of the Law. While at Hastings, Leah worked as a tutor at the Tenderloin After-School Program.
Nina Wasow is a plaintiffs' employment lawyer at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C. in Oakland. She specializes in individual disability and pension benefit claims as well as class action ERISA cases. Ms. Wasow received her B.A. in urban studies from Columbia University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. Prior to law school, she worked for the New York City Department of Homeless Services on siting and developing new shelter capacity.
Professor Boswell has been teaching law at UC Hastings College of the Law since 1990. He received his B.A. in Urban Economics from Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles and his J.D. from the George Washington University National Law Center. He was in private practice and later joined the faculty of the George Washington University National Law Center where he directed the Trial Practice Program and Immigration Law Clinic and taught immigration law. Working his way west, he joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1986. Professor Boswell is a frequent lecturer on immigration law and has taught regularly in programs for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy since 1986. In addition to his work in clinical legal education, Professor Boswell has been involved in rule of law/justice projects in Central Asia, Columbia, Guatemala, Palestine and Venezuela. He currently teaches immigration law, and directs the Immigrants' Rights Clinic.
Will Cooper volunteered at GAAP during law school at Berkeley. He is now an Associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in San Francisco. His practice ranges from intellectual property litigation to pro bono prisoners' rights appeals.