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 two new members of the organization’s Board of Directors.

The new board members, legal leaders with expertise in real estate and finance, are Janice Mac Avoy, Partner at the Fried Frank law firm (New York, NY) and J.B. Kittredge, General Counsel for Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo &, Co. LLC asset management firm (Boston, MA). Ms. Mac Avoy spearheaded the amicus brief filing from 113 female lawyers who have had abortions urging the Supreme Court to reject Texas’ clinic shutdown law and uphold a woman’s constitutional right to access safe and legal abortion services. Mr. Kittredge is a human rights activist, currently serving on the board of ACLU Boston. 

“We are honored to welcome both Janice Mac Avoy and J.B. Kittredge to our Board of Directors,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Their unwavering support of reproductive rights, their diverse legal expertise, and their longstanding commitment to social justice will help the Center for Reproductive Rights 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:

Janice Mac Avoy is head of the Real Estate Litigation Practice Group at Fried Frank and co-chair of the Firm’s Pro Bono Committee. 

Ms. Mac Avoy concentrates her practice in complex real estate-related transactions and disputes, commercial litigation and arbitration, complex commercial landlord tenant disputes and commercial fair market rent arbitrations.  She also has extensive experience in creditor’s rights, including complex commercial real estate mortgage foreclosures and UCC foreclosures, workouts and restructuring of real estate secured debt.  Ms. Mac Avoy works with the Firm’s Real Estate Department on transactions in order to resolve issues without resorting to litigation.

Ms. Mac Avoy is a member of Fried Frank’s Diversity Committee as well as the Women’s Forum Planning Committee, a representative group directing Fried Frank’s Firmwide women’s affinity group.

Ms. Mac Avoy is a member of the American Law Institute and the Association of Real Estate Women, a former member of the board of directors of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and current board member of Sanctuary for Families, as well as a member and voting representative of the CRE Finance Council.

Ms. Mac Avoy received her JD from Columbia Law School in 1988, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and associate editor of the Columbia Law Review.  She received her BA, summa cum laude, from Washington University in St. Louis in 1985, where she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society and has since been recognized as a distinguished alumna. 

J.B. Kittredge is the General Counsel for Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo &, Co. LLC, a global asset management firm that provides investment advice to institutional clients. GMO manages over $95 billion in assets. Mr. Kittredge leads the compliance and fund accounting teams and serves on the firm’s mutual fund board.

Previously, Mr. Kittredge was a partner in the corporate department of Ropes &, Gray, where he specialized in regulatory and transactional matters, and worked extensively with investment advisers, hedge fund managers, investment companies and mutual-fund distributors. Mr. Kittredge practiced at the firm from 1979 through 2005.

Mr. Kittredge is a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1976, and Harvard Law School, class of 1979, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review.  Mr. Kittredge’s other Board memberships include the ACLU of Massachusetts, where he is a member of the Executive Committee.