LSNJ - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Global Services, Strategy Lead / Johnson & Johnson
In her position with Johnson & Johnson's Global Services, Angelica Valenza focuses on increasing consistency and efficiency in the corporation's global strategy. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, she served as Chief of Staff for Prudential Advisors and co-chaired Prudential Advisors Inclusion & Diversity Council. Before Prudential, she worked as an organizational development specialist for Hewlett Packard Financial Services.
Valenza has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Rutgers University and graduate credits from Rutgers and Columbia University. She is currently enrolled in the Harvard Extension School for Professional Development and is a member of the Association of Latino Professional in Finance and Accounting and Women's Unlimited, as well as a Fellow of the United Way Project Leadership Program.
"I've always volunteered in the community," says Valenza, "but I'm excited to be involved on a larger scale. When I learned more about the organization and all it has to offer, it really spoke to my core."
She sees the diversification of the board from members with legal backgrounds as a unique opportunity to offer a different expertise. "I'm interested in how we leverage that diversity to broaden Legal Services' reach and help more people. That's how I'm hoping to help."
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Fisher & Phillips LLP / Chairperson
As senior counsel in Fisher Phillips' New Jersey office, Jacob is engaged primarily as a neutral arbitrator and mediator in all aspects of employment law, ranging from individual matters to collective and class actions, ERISA and FLSA cases, and related matters. She is a former president of the New Jersey State Bar Association and a former chair of the Lawyers' Advisory Committee for the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Prior to her 35 years as a trial attorney in private practice, Jacob began her legal career in public service in the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. While there, she taught appellate practice at Rutgers Law School, Camden. She then became successively the first director of the Central Appellate Research Section of the Administrative Office of the Courts, the director of Civil Practice and acting standing master of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Jacob has taught numerous continuing legal education courses in the areas of arbitration, federal practice, employment litigation, and rainmaking. In addition to receiving her law degree from Yale University, she has a Ph.D. in Art History and has taught the Laws of Cultural Heritage and Preservation at Rutgers University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Doug Eakeley joined Rutgers Law School in 2012 as the first Alan V. Lowenstein Chair in Corporate and Business Law, after several decades in private practice specializing in complex commercial litigation. A Distinguished Professor of Professional Practice, he is the founder and co-director of the Rutgers Center for Corporate Law and Governance and the founder and co-director of the Rutgers Law School Entrepreneurship Clinic.
Eakeley is a former Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Yale College, Oxford University and Yale Law School, and served as First Assistant Attorney General of the State of New Jersey during the Administration of Governor James J. Florio. In 1993, he was appointed by President William J. Clinton to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation, which he chaired until April 2003. He is a founding trustee and former board chair of the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice and trustee and former LSNJ board chair.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Owner at McCreedy & Cox
Partner and owner at McCreedy & Cox, Edwin McCreedy served as president of the New Jersey State Bar Association from 2004 to 2005 and has held several prominent leadership positions and memberships in prestigious organizations, including American College of Trial Lawyers, New Jersey state chair (1995-1997); International Society of Barristers; American Bar Foundation; American Bar Association; New Jersey State Bar Association, chair, Judicial Administration Committee, 1994-1996, trustee 1997-2001; Union County Bar Association, president 1987; Richard J. Hughes American Inn of Court, Founder, president 1991-1992; Trial Attorneys of New Jersey, trustee 1992-1995; ATLA; ABOTA; NJ Supreme Court Civil Practice Committee 1985-1996; New Jersey Lawyer Newspaper, treasurer, 1999-2001; board of trustees, IOLTA Fund of the Bar of New Jersey, (2004-present), chair (2010-2011); Supreme Court Historical Society.
McCreedy also served as a Commander and Captain in the United States Marine Corps from 1961 - 1965, in the U.S., Japan, and the Philippines. He received his law degree from the Fordham University School of Law and holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Secretary of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Legal Counsel to CVS Health / Aetna
John Kahn is legal counsel to CVS Health/Aetna in Florham Park, NJ. He researches and analyzes health care laws and regulations, and provides legal support and regulatory guidance to internal business partners to facilitate the early resolution of litigation claims. Prior roles include serving as chair of the IOLTA Fund of the State of New Jersey, trustee of the New Jersey State Bar Association, and president of the Camden County Bar Association. His time at the IOLTA Fund overlapped with former LSNJ president De Miller, whom he remembers as a "pioneer for social justice in New Jersey."
While a student at Rutgers Law School, Camden, Kahn worked as an LSNJ law clerk with the LSNJLAW SM Hotline, the SSI Project, and Health Care Access Project. After graduating from law school in 2005, Kahn joined the firm of Archer & Greiner, but maintained an interest in the work of Legal Services, assisting clients pro bono through LSNJ's Foreclosure Defense Project.
"The board is actually a who's who of great legal minds in New Jersey," says Kahn. "Being part of this group of New Jersey legal luminaries is both an honor and a privilege."
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- First Vice Chairperson
Karol Corbin Walker focuses her practice on business, commercial, employment, toxic tort, and product liability litigation matters. Her clients have included many Fortune 500 corporations as well as other publicly and privately held corporations, financial institutions, entertainers, and insurance companies.
Walker is a trailblazer and a woman of many firsts. She was the first person of color and first woman to serve as a state delegate representing New Jersey on the Nominating Committee in the American Bar Association's House of Delegates (2020); the first African American president of the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey (2015); the first New Jersey attorney appointed as chair of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary (2015); the first African American female president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents (2012); the first African American president in the then 105-year history of the New Jersey State Bar Association (2003-2004); and the first African American appointed as Chair of the NJSBA's Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee (1998).
Walker also previously served as a member of the New Jersey State Ethics Commission. The Commission is responsible for ensuring that state employees adhere to ethics rules. She was appointed to this Commission by former New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Managing Partner of the Cherry Hill
Lisa Rodriguez is managing partner of the Cherry Hill, New Jersey office of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis. She has decades of experience in litigating complex, multiparty class actions for business and government agencies on both the plaintiffs' and defendants' sides. Her class action experience spans a variety of substantive areas, including antitrust, securities, and consumer matters. She represents clients in matters involving intellectual property issues and corporate governance disputes. As an appellate advocate, Rodriguez frequently briefs and argues appeals in both state and federal appellate courts. She is also a past president of the Association of the Federal Bar of the District of New Jersey and a current member of the Lawyers Advisory Committee for the District of New Jersey.
Rodriguez is a frequent panel speaker, having appeared for the Practicing Law Institute on Securities Regulation; the Philadelphia Bar Education Center on consumer and class action issues; a HarrisMartin Antitrust Pay-for-Delay Litigation Conference, and the American Bar Association National Institute on Class Actions. She has also appeared for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Education on a variety of topics, including best appellate practices and class actions practices and procedures.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- President
- President and CEO / MZM Construction
Marjorie Perry serves on numerous esteemed boards, including RWJ UMDNJ, the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, the Newark Regional Business Partnership, and the Adubato Advisory Board. The Harvard Business School graduate is President and CEO of MZM Construction & Management Company, a company she co-founded more than 25 years ago.
In addition to her extremely successful business career, Perry is also a coveted public speaker, writer, and role model for women and minorities in business. When invited to join the LSNJ board, the cause resonated. Perry knows first-hand through her business experience just how quickly legal costs can skyrocket and notes the critical role Legal Services and other nonprofits have played in recent years for immigrants in crisis and in housing cases throughout the pandemic.
As she learns more about LSNJ, Perry says she is now "getting a bigger overview on how deep this dive goes." As one of a few non-attorneys on the board, she is eager to offer a new perspective and lend a hand in any way she can. "The need is greater than I've seen in my lifetime, so thank God for Legal Services. What would people do?"
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Furey has been selected for inclusion on the list of New Jersey Super Lawyers in the fields of Business Litigation and Employment and Labor by the publishers of Law & Politics and New Jersey Monthly magazines since 2005. He has also been named one of the Top 100 lawyers in the state for his work in business-related litigation seven times.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Vice President and General Counsel at Princeton University
Ramona Romero has been vice president and general counsel at Princeton University since 2014 and was previously general counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, she worked at DuPont in a variety of legal roles, after a career as a litigator in Washington, D.C. She holds a B.A. from Barnard College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School
"If you look at the arc of my career," she says, "there has always been a component of community and legal services. Providing pro bono services to people directly has been an important part of my work in private practice, while also focusing on more macro social services issues."
Romero currently serves on the board of trustees of the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton. Prior volunteer service includes the boards of The Justice at Stake Campaign, the American Red Cross of the Delmarva Peninsula, and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, as well as the advisory committee of The O'Connor Judicial Selection Initiative at the University of Denver. She is a former national president of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA), where she founded the Latina Commission and the highly successful Hispanic Appointments Project.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Partner
Ross Lewin is a partner in the Princeton office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, where he maintains a complex commercial litigation practice in both the trial and appellate courts and a focus on environmental matters. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and clerked for New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Alan B. Handler from 1982-1983.
Lewin has a longstanding commitment to legal services for all in need and is a long-time member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees. He also served previously on the Board of the Legal Aid Society of Mercer County.
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the LSNJ Board of Trustees
- Fox Rothschild LLP / Second Vice Chairperson
Retired New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Virginia Long joined Fox Rothschild in March 2012 after 15 years on the Appellate Division and 12 years as a pivotal player on the Supreme Court.
At Fox Rothschild, Long devotes her efforts to assisting clients with ethics and appellate matters, corporate governance and governmental integrity investigations, and to serving as a mediator and arbitrator providing dispute resolution alternatives in civil and matrimonial cases. She also spearheads the firm's pro bono efforts in New Jersey. She is a member of the Governor's Judicial Advisory Panel and co-chaired the Attorney General's Conviction Review/Cold Case Commission.
Long was appointed to the state's high court in 1999 by Governor Christine Todd Whitman. In that capacity, she authored many opinions that impacted the lives of people statewide and addressed such topics as establishing standards for a determination of who constitutes a "psychological parent;" determining that the refusal to renew the employment contract of an employee over the age of 70 violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination; and first recognizing PTSD as a basis for workers compensation and disability retirement benefits. She also penned a number of ground breaking land use opinions and numerous insurance opinions including several regarding risk allocation in long tail environmental exposure cases.