MINNEY & CORR - Key Persons
Ashley De Vance works on the YM&C Litigation and Student Services Teams practicing in the areas of student rights, discipline, special education, and all types of civil litigation.
Before joining Young, Minney & Corr, LLP, Ashley worked as a litigation attorney at a large, international firm in Downtown Los Angeles. During this time, she focused on various areas of litigation and represented clients in state, federal, and arbitral forums. She also engaged in extensive pro bono work with the ACLU Justice Lab and served on the Public Counsel Leadership Council.
Ashley earned her J.D. from the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law, along with a public interest law certificate. While in law school, Ashley worked for the USC International Human Rights Clinic as a Refugee Rights Advocacy Team member and served in several leadership positions, including a peer mentor and the community service chair for the Black Law Student Association. She also spent a semester abroad in Lyon, France, earning a postgraduate diploma in International and European Business Law.
Ashley has always been passionate about education and promoting educational equity. Before pursuing a career in law, she earned a Master of Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Ashley spent three years as a high school social science teacher at a charter school in Los Angeles. She also worked as a teacher's assistant and AVID tutor at various public high and middle schools throughout Southern California.
PRACTICE AREAS
Student Rights & Discipline
Job Titles:
- Legal Assistant / Paralegal
Brittnee Gillespie Malone has practiced disability rights and education law since graduating from Loyola Law School in 2015. While in law school, Brittnee advocated for students with disabilities in multiple special education clinics, inspiring her to pursue a career supporting students with disabilities. Brittnee has extensive experience in public interest law, including special education and disability discrimination matters.
Before joining Young, Minney, & Corr, LLP, Brittnee was a supervising attorney with Disability Rights California. In that role, Brittnee supervised attorneys and advocates throughout California as they represented individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a Senior Counsel with Young, Minney, & Corr, LLP, Brittnee represents clients in school meetings, administrative hearings, and complaint proceedings. Brittnee enjoys spending her free time with her family and playing soccer. She is also an active Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® member, spending much time planning and implementing community service projects in the Elk Grove and greater Sacramento area.
PRACTICE AREAS
Student Rights & Discipline
Job Titles:
- ASSOCIATE
- Board Member for the Read to Me Project
Cassandra Bridge works on the YM&C Student Services and Labor/Employment Teams with an emphasis in practice areas, including assisting schools in compliance with special education, Section 504, student discipline, hiring, discipline/termination, and labor relations. Before pursuing a career in law, Cassandra spent over 25 years in public education as a teacher or administrator for kindergarten through postsecondary education students. While living in Japan, Cassandra was the Education Program Director for the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet. For the last 14 years, she has been the Executive Director of a California charter school that grew from 160 students to over 450+ students. As a result, she is well versed in charter school operations, human resources, student discipline, finances, and managing special education, including serving on the Sonoma County Charter SELPA CEO Council for ten years.
Cassandra is an active board member for the Read to Me Project, whose mission is to help under-served children achieve kindergarten readiness by empowering older siblings to read to their young siblings. She also volunteers as the Board Secretary for the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education.
PRACTICE AREAS
Student Rights & Discipline
Christy Feldman works on the YM&C Student Services Team to assist schools in day-to-day special education compliance, student rights & discipline, and independent study. Christy previously represented the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, serving public clients, including the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, Library, Human Relations Commission, and Arts Commission. This legal experience included due process defense, student discipline, and governance and employment matters counseling. Christy also worked in the Employee Relations Division for the City and County of San Francisco.
Christy received her B.A. in Classical Civilizations from the University of North Carolina. And Christy received her J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. She is an incredibly loyal fan of the University of North Carolina Tarheels men's basketball team - and thinks March Madness should be a holiday.
Outside of YM&C, Christy is active at her children's school, supporting art and diversity efforts.
PRACTICE AREAS
Student Rights & Discipline
Douglas K. Wood brings a distinguished legal career to Young, Minney & Corr, LLP.
Erica Shubin presently specializes in special education law. Preceding her tenure at Young, Minney & Corr, LLP, Erica dedicated her expertise to non-profit entities within the special education services sector. Additionally, she collaborated with organizations leveraging media, arts, and film as powerful tools for illuminating critical social issues through creating documentary films, educational curricula, and artistic endeavors. Noteworthy, Erica is the visionary behind several minority-owned enterprises in the financial domain, overseeing client accounts and establishing a robust network of similarly-owned law firms to cater to the financial industry nationally.
PRACTICE AREAS
Student Rights & Discipline
Job Titles:
- Founder
- PARTNER
- Founding Principal
Founding Principal Jim Young began his career in education as a high school teacher in 1986, and since becoming an attorney in 1992, he has worked exclusively representing public schools.
Jim continues to work at the forefront of important issues for charter schools in California, addressing employment law, labor relations, board governance, and student discipline since the early years of the Charter Schools Act. Jim's extensive work as general counsel to school districts throughout the 1990s has proven a unique and invaluable resource in effectively representing charter schools in most legal concerns.
In 2012, Jim successfully argued before the California Supreme Court in a case which resulted in a published decision upholding the rights of charter schools under California's Charter Schools Act. He has also served as chief negotiator to establish many of the first labor agreements for charter schools in California, and he negotiated one of the first labor agreements for a charter management organization in New York.
Jim is known statewide for his expertise and efforts to heighten charter school compliance with critical legal requirements and awareness of best practices. To these ends, Jim founded the firm's Annual Personnel and Student Services Workshop Series in 2001, and he is a regularly featured speaker for charter school boards and agencies throughout the state.
PRACTICE AREAS
Board Governance
Job Titles:
- Legal Assistant / Paralegal
Widely recognized throughout the state as a leading authority on charter school, education, and public agency law, John C. Lemmo brings over twenty-five years of experience to YM&C, representing charter schools, private schools, and colleges, and providing counseling regarding governance, operational, facilities, and business matters.
John has been extensively involved in high-profile litigation defending the rights of charter schools and other educational organizations throughout his career and adds to YM&C's unsurpassed expertise in education and charter law. With this addition, YM&C enhances its reputation for excellence and its ability to serve clients in the areas we lead.
In addition to his work with education organizations, John has deep expertise representing public agencies, nonprofits including healthcare and social services providers, and private developers in a wide range of matters, including regulatory compliance, development, and real estate and finance.
PRACTICE AREAS
Litigation
Kevin M. Troy has spent the last eight years representing charter schools and private schools at the trial and appellate court level in various constitutional challenges, traditional and administrative mandamus actions regarding the approval, renewal, revocation, and funding of charter schools, accounting disputes, judicial challenges to state and local audits, unfair business practices actions, attorneys' fees actions, protected activity retaliation actions, disputes as to the allocation of federal funding, and many others. In addition, Kevin helped lead the first successful private arbitration in California of a claim against a school district for failure to share district facilities with a charter school under Proposition 39, as well as the judicial approval of the resulting $7 million arbitration award. Kevin recently represented Clayton Valley Charter High School in its successful appeal of a Contra Costa County Superior Court ruling in Mt. Diablo Unified School Dist. v. Clayton Valley Charter High School (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 1004. Kevin has also represented numerous charter schools in both external and internal investigations.
Kevin also has deep experience appearing before California state and local administrative agencies, including the State Board of Education, the Office of Administrative Hearings, the Public Employment Relations Board, the Education Audit Appeals Panel, CalSTRS, and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, as well as numerous local school district and county boards of education. Where necessary, Kevin has successfully challenged the decisions of such administrative agencies through judicial action, most recently successfully setting aside a $2 million ruling of the Education Audit Appeals Panel in California Virtual Academy @ Fresno, et al. v. Education Audit Appeals Panel (Sacramento Cty Sup. Ct., Case No. 34-2019-80003229, October 13, 2020.) He has also repeatedly leveraged this experience successfully challenging agency decisions to secure favorable settlements for clients and favorable prelitigation resolutions of disputes.
On the transactional side, Kevin has structured, negotiated, and memorialized the mergers of non-profit public benefit corporations, the securing of loan agreements, and the acquisition of facilities to be used by charter schools. He devised and successfully implemented two (different) novel strategies allowing two charter school clients lawfully to continue to operate when, mid-school year, the Supreme Court of Washington ruled that that state's Charter School Act was unconstitutional. He also successfully established the first "residency"-style teacher credentialing program ever approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. He has provided legal advice to clients as to countless public law issues, including the Brown Act, Public Records Act, Government Code 1090, the Political Reform Act, California property tax collection and usage, unfunded state mandates, the powers and responsibilities of state auditing agencies, public employee labor law, gifts of public funds, the Government Claims Act, and federal Title I funding.
Prior to joining Young, Minney & Corr LLP, Kevin worked as a litigator and transactional attorney in New York, Shanghai, and the Bay Area representing clients in a broad range of matters, including antitrust and price-gauging, false advertising, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, corporate fraud, copyright infringement claims, governmental and internal investigations, and bankruptcy proceedings. Before law school, Kevin worked as an economist, designing economic models to gauge the cost-effectiveness of proposed federal regulations, and has worked as a translator of Mandarin-language legal documents.
In his free time, Kevin enjoys German literature and running.
PRACTICE AREAS
Insurance Defense
As an associate at Young, Minney, & Corr, LLP, Kimberly has focused her practice on nonprofit organizations in the areas of incorporation, tax-exemption, governance, CMO organizational structuring, mergers, dissolutions, the formation of LLCs, out-of-state charter school growth and foundation development for fundraising and capital campaigns. Her areas of practice also include conflicts of interests, the California Public Records Act, and The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Prior to joining Young, Minney & Corr, LLP, Kimberly was a civil litigation attorney with McCormick Barstow, LLP representing clients in both state and federal courts in insurance coverage and defense matters. While attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, Kimberly developed an interest in the law while interning at the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara where she assisted with a multi-tenant housing discrimination lawsuit.
Kimberly currently serves on the Board of Directors of a nonprofit corporation located in the Sacramento area serving children with special needs.
PRACTICE AREAS
Board Governance
Leticia Velez Ericson has two decades of practical business management and human resources experience, including in unionized environments. Her service as an Equal Employment Opportunity Officer, Senior Workplace Investigator, and Senior Human Resources Manager honed her manner of providing strategic and researched advice on complex issues, including Title IX and Title VI/VII. She crafted and implemented comprehensive compliance programs. In addition, she has provided thousands of employees and managers training on harassment prevention, professional boundaries, and non-discrimination.
Leticia advises on Human resources best practices involving the entire life-cycle of employment matters. Additionally, she enjoys facilitating creative and strategic alternative dispute resolutions and accomplishing successful and sustainable outcomes with parties.
She is a trusted and experienced principal writer for matters submitted to arbitration and for responses to agencies, including the EEOC, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, and the California Civil Rights Department.
Leticia was a featured panelist for the San Francisco Bay Area's EEO Enforcement Office on HR Best practices.
PRACTICE AREAS
Labor & Employment
Lindsay Rosas works on the YM&C School Development, Facilities, Labor & Employment, and Litigation Teams. Lindsay comes from a long family history of educators and legal advocates.
Before pursuing a career in law, Lindsay spent two years working in elementary school education, beginning as an after-school tutor and eventually as a program administrator for an after-school tutoring company that serviced three elementary schools.
Lindsay graduated cum laude from Southwestern Law School, where she served in various leadership roles, including as a Board Member for the Southwestern Moot Court Honors Program and Communications Chair, Secretary, and Evening Chair of the Southwestern Public Interest Law Committee. Lindsay's excellent performance in law school was recognized by Bluebook awards for editing on the Southwestern Law Review, CALI and Witkin Awards for academic achievement, and Dean's List awards. She also achieved semi-finalist and octa-finalist status in two national moot court competitions; one focused on constitutional law and the other on labor and employment law. In addition to her academic achievement, Lindsay worked as a law clerk in both civil and criminal litigation during law school. She was also a judicial extern for the Chief District Judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Before joining Young, Minney & Corr, LLP, Lindsay worked as an associate attorney at the nation's most extensive pro bono legal services, Public Counsel. Her practice areas focused on employment law and Title IX representation.
Outside of YM&C, Lindsay is a devoted mother to two young children and an avid reader of mystery novels.
PRACTICE AREAS
Facilities
Paul Minney has represented charter schools in a multitude of critical areas, since the inception of the Charter Schools Act in 1992. After drafting the fifth charter in the state Paul has assisted over 500 charter schools in developing charter petitions, MOU's, facility use agreements, corporate papers and many other vital charter school documents. His areas of practice also include policy development, governance, Prop. 39 and facilities, revocation, audit defense, dispute resolution, and litigation.
Paul is a frequent speaker at CCSA sponsored events throughout California as well as a contributing author to the National Charter School Law Deskbook published by Lexis Nexis in association with the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Paul continues to be a founding member of the CCSA Legal Defense Fund (an organization designed to provide high quality and comprehensive legal services to all charter schools throughout the state of California) and he was a founding organizer of the National Network of Charter School Attorneys (the goal of this organization is to provide coordinated, effective legal support for charter schools throughout the United States). Paul was also formerly an appointed member of the State Superintendent's Charter School Advisory Committee and a founding member of the American Inns of Court (Robert G. McGrath, American Inns of Court).
Roger Scott's practice covers all aspects of labor and employment law. This includes serving as a negotiator for school boards, and working before California's Public Employment Relations Board in all matters related to unions and charter schools. Specifically, Roger has served as chief negotiator on many of the first labor agreements for charter schools in California.
Prior to joining Young, Minney & Corr, LLP Roger worked in civil litigation for two and one-half years before joining the Peace Corps, where he served as Legal Adviser to two provincial governments in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. He also spent over thirteen years as an area representative at United Teachers Los Angeles, where he was responsible for handling grievances and arbitrations in addition to serving as chief negotiator in several "first contracts" for charter schools. Roger has also conducted trainings in the Essentials of Bargaining for several years.
Roger's interest in education law began in the classroom, as a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District where he spent 13 years teaching English in addition to ESL, journalism, and social studies to students in grades 6 through 11.
PRACTICE AREAS
Labor & Employment
EDUCATION
University of Southern California (J.D.)
University of California, Berkeley (B.A.)
Sarah Cassady's practice areas include board governance and all matters related to employment and labor law, including discipline and dismissal, investigation of employee misconduct, leave laws, wage and hour law, benefits and STRS/PERS administration, disability accommodation, grievance, arbitration, and representation of employers before related state agencies and courts.
Sarah was recently appointed by the California Supreme Court to serve on a panel of attorneys assigned to investigate the California Bar Exam. She also serves as the Chair of the American Bar Association YLD Labor and Employment Committee and as a Representative for the State of California in the American Bar Association House of Delegates. She has published numerous articles and conducted presentations on a variety of labor and employment issues.
PRACTICE AREAS
Labor & Employment
EDUCATION
Santa Clara University School of Law (J.D.)
University of California, Berkeley (B.A.)
Stacy is an active member in her local legal community as a professor of legal research and bar studies at the Santa Barbara and Ventura campuses of The Colleges of Law. While a law student, she was invited to participate in the Santa Barbara Inns of Court. Additionally, Stacy is currently developing an Introduction to Education Law course launching in the spring of 2022.
Job Titles:
- Legal Assistant / Paralegal
Job Titles:
- Legal Assistant / Paralegal
William ("Bill") J. Trinkle is a widely experienced trial attorney, having litigated multimillion-dollar cases since 1982 in State and Federal courts in California. He has experience in court and jury trials, Federal and State appeals, mediations, and arbitrations.