New Directors Join Board of Center for Reproductive Rights

(PRESS RELEASE) The Center for Reproductive Rights, a global legal advocacy organization that fights to ensure reproductive rights are guaranteed in law as human rights, announced five new members of the organization’s Board of Directors.

The new board members are reproductive health advocates and leaders with expertise in education, finance, film production, law, and nonprofit management. They are: Lorraine Clasquin (Austin, TX.), David H. Hoffman (Chicago, IL), Rachel Lam (New York, NY), Heidi Fugeman Lindelof (Los Angeles, CA), and Joseph A. Stern (New York, NY).

“We are pleased to welcome such dedicated and diverse individuals to our Board of Directors,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Their steadfast support of reproductive rights, their diverse professional expertise and longstanding commitment to social justice will help the Center for Reproductive Rights expand our reach to further advance our mission to defend fundamental human rights across the globe.” 

The Center for Reproductive Rights’ game changing litigation and advocacy work, combined with its unparalleled expertise in the use of constitutional, international, and comparative human rights law, have transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies. It has played a key role in securing legal victories in the U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe on issues including access to life-saving obstetrics care, contraception, safe abortion services, and comprehensive sexuality information, as well as the prevention of forced sterilization, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. It has brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, U.N. Committees, and regional human rights bodies, and has built the legal capacity of women’s rights advocates in over 60 countries. It is headquartered in New York with offices in Washington, D.C., Bogota, Colombia, Geneva, Switzerland, Kathmandu, Nepal, and Nairobi, Kenya.

Biographical information about the new Board members is below:

Lorraine Clasquin is president of The KLE Foundation, which she co-founded with her husband in 1997 to assist and promote quality public education in underserved communities and reproductive rights. Previously, she was a partner at Holtzmann, Wise and Shepard, where she practiced in the firm’s Palo Alto office from 1983 to 1993, and served as counsel from 1993 to 1997. Ms. Clasquin is an active and dedicated supporter of several organizations that provide access to affordable reproductive health care, sex education and women’s reproductive rights, including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas (PPGT). She is a graduate of Wellesley College and USC Law School. (Austin, TX)

David H. Hoffman is a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin. His practice focuses on complex civil litigation at the trial and appellate level and the representation of Boards of Directors in internal and governmental investigations. Before joining Sidley in 2011, Mr. Hoffman worked in public service, including serving as Inspector General for the City of Chicago (2005-09), an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago (1998-2005), and Press Secretary and Legislative Assistant to Senator David Boren (D-OK) (1990-92). He was appointed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to serve as a Commissioner on the Illinois Reform Commission (2009) and by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as a Director of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust (2012-14), and has served since 2012 as a member of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Legal Services Corporation, the federal entity that provides funding to legal aid clinics. Recent not-for-profit positions include Co-Chair of the Civil Rights Executive Committee of the Anti-Defamation League, Midwest Chapter, member of the Board of Advisors of the American Constitution Society’s Chicago Lawyer Chapter, and Director of the Better Government Association, where he remains a Life Trustee. Mr. Hoffman was the runner up in the Illinois Democratic primary for the United States Senate in 2010 after being endorsed by all the major daily newspapers in Illinois. He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School where he was Articles Editor of the Law Review, a Patino Fellow, President of the Law School Democrats, and recipient of the University President’s Award for Volunteer Service. After law school, Mr. Hoffman served as a law clerk for Judge Dennis G. Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School since 2010 and is the co-author of Public Corruption and the Law (West 2016), the first law school textbook on the subject. (Chicago, IL)

Rachel Lam is a New York-based venture capitalist and currently serves on the boards of Tremor Video (NYSE: TRMR) and Mashable. She founded the Time Warner Investments group in 2003, and was head of the strategic investing arm of Time Warner Inc. for 14 years until early 2017. Under Ms. Lam’s leadership, the venture capital group of Time Warner invested over $325MM in 54 companies. She has led numerous investments in early stage digital media companies, and managed Time Warner’s investments in and exits from many portfolio companies, including: Maker Studios (sold to Disney), Bluefin Labs (sold to Twitter), Admeld (sold to Google), Playspan (sold to Visa) and MediaVast (sold to Getty Images). Before returning to Time Warner in 2001, Ms. Lam worked in venture capital and private equity at Quetzal/Chase Capital Partners, and at CSFB Equity Partners, respectively. Prior to that, she was Director, Office of the President at Time Warner Inc., where she worked directly for former Time Warner CEO, Richard D. Parsons, on corporate transactions and strategic initiatives. In addition, Ms. Lam spent several years in investment banking, focusing on the media sector at Credit Suisse First Boston and on mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley. She received a B.S. degree in industrial engineering and operations research from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. (New York, NY)

Heidi Fugeman Lindelof is a Los Angeles-based advocate for women &, children. She worked for 13 years in feature film before leaving the entertainment industry to have a child with husband, Damon Lindelof. Ms. Lindelof coordinated &, attended a medical mission in Jos, Nigeria for Global Strategies, directed a short documentary for the Children’s Defense Fund and helped launch the literacy &, service learning non-profit Milk + Bookies. She previously sat on the board of and continues to attend The Weekend [to be named later], a conference for innovators in tech, non-profit, education, government and art &, entertainment. Ms. Lindelof’s current board service includes The UCLA Lab School and The Mother Co. In addition to her service on the Center for Reproductive Rights Board, Ms. Lindelof is a member of Liberty Hill Foundation’s XX Fund and the Los Angles Women’s Collective. Ms. Lindelof’s primary areas of focus are women’s reproductive rights, education, and politics. (Los Angeles, CA)

Joseph Stern is a managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs and is the general counsel for the firm’s mergers and acquisition advisory practice. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Stern was general counsel, executive vice president and a member of the Board of Directors of Dow Jones &, Company until News Corporation’s acquisition of Dow Jones in 2008. Previously, he was a corporate partner at the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver &, Jacobson and a member of that firm’s governance committee. Mr. Stern previously served as a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and currently serves on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the Bar Association of the City of New York, where he serves on the Mergers &, Acquisitions Committee. Mr. Stern earned a BA from Yale College and a JD from Yale Law School and attended Trinity College, Cambridge University. (New York, NY)

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