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MANAGEMENT TEAM
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Susan Jacobs, Esq., is CFR's founding Executive Director and President.
She directs CFR's overall program and vision and sits on its Board of Directors.
Ms. Jacobs has 25 years of experience as a family law attorney representing adults and children in
Family court, New York State Supreme Court and in Federal Court. In addition to her law
degree, she has a Master's Degree in early Childhood, Special Education. Just prior to
founding CFR, Ms. Jacobs served as the Director of Family Law and Senior Managing Attorney at The
Legal Action Center for the City of New York, Inc. (LAC), where she worked for 13 years,
representing parents in Family Court and litigating in state and federal courts on behalf of individuals
with HIV, alcohol and drug related disabilities. At LAC, Ms. Jacobs administered grants
including a federal contract. She was a member of LAC's Senior Management team supervising
a professional and support staff of 25. Ms. Jacobs earned a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School,
an M.S. in Special Education from the University of North Carolina and a B.A. from Cornell University.
Ms. Jacobs has authored publications on confidentiality and parents' legal rights and has presented
at national conferences on public health, substance abuse and child welfare.
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Michele Cortese, Esq., is CFR's Deputy Director and joined the organization in November 2002.
Ms. Cortese has personally conducted more than 85 of CFR's training sessions, has been a member of the
faculties of the Practicing Law Institute and the Child Welfare League of America, and has written for
the American Bar Association's Center on Children and the Law. Ms. Cortese has been in the
child welfare field continuously since 1987. In addition to being a law guardian, she has
represented foster care agencies in trial and appellate proceedings. Ms. Cortese supervised
the development of CFR's interdisciplinary models of representation for parents in child welfare cases
and provides direct supervision to program staff. Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Cortese worked
at the Juvenile Rights Division of The Legal Aid Society (JRP), serving as the Director of Professional
Development, and coordinating and conducting training for attorney, social work, paralegal and management
staff division-wide. Ms. Cortese also served as the Attorney-In-Charge of JRP's Manhattan trial
office. Ms. Cortese received a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law and a B.A.
from Colgate University.
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Genevieve Christy is CFR's Chief Financial Officer and oversees all aspects of CFR's fiscal operations.
Ms. Christy worked as a Management Consultant in finance and systems applications at Deutsch, Inc. and
Zenith Media Services Inc. for over nine years, running projects with budgets of over $180 million.
Prior to that, she worked in finance at Time Warner, Inc., and she ultimately was Finance Manager of the
Editorial Division of Time Magazine where she supervised a staff of 11 and an annual budget of more than
$100 million. Genevieve Christy earned a B.A. from Duke University and pursued postgraduate
studies at University College in London. Ms. Christy is responsible for CFR's strategic fiscal
planning, establishing budgets and forecasting income and expenses. She creates monthly cash
flow reports for the General Management team and for CFR's Board Finance Committee. Ms. Christy
has a B.A. from Duke University and pursued postgraduate studies at University College in London.>br?
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Ada Lozada, Administrative Manager, joined CFR in 2005 and works closely with the CFO and the Executive
Director on a variety of fiscal and administrative operations, including human resources, information
systems, and information technology. Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Lozada worked at The Legal
Aid Society in the Capital Division, the Criminal Defense Division and the Juvenile Rights Practice.
At Legal Aid, Ms. Lozada worked as both an administrator and as a paralegal, assisting investigators,
conducting interviews, providing case management and advocacy for clients and conducting legal research.
While at the Capital Division, Ms. Lozada worked closely with the team's social work staff in retrieving
life history records of each client for mitigation purposes in order to help the client avoid the death
penalty. Ms. Lozada attended Queens College and is a bilingual in English and Spanish.
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SUPERVISORY STAFF
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Jill Cohen, LMSW, became CFR's first Social Work Supervisor when she joined
the agency in 2003 and is bi-lingual in English and Spanish. She supervises CFR's staff social
worker, parent advocates, and social work interns, and co-directs one of CFR's current Community Advocacy
Teams. She also presents training sessions and participates in various policy initiatives
throughout the city; Ms. Cohen worked with practitioners throughout the New York to create a Parent's handbook
on child welfare proceedings and on citywide protocols to enhance collaboration between family court
practitioners and foster care case workers. Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Cohen was an Advocate
Supervisor at Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) in Brooklyn Family Court. Ms. Cohen began
her work in child welfare at the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) and the Urban Justice Center (UJC).
In 2006, she obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Adult and Adolescent Forensic Mental Health from the
NYU School of Social Work. She obtained an M.S.W. from the Hunter College School of Social Work
and a B.A. from Barnard College.
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Elizabeth Fassler, Esq. is one of CFR's Litigation Supervisors She has been
representing parents in child protective, custody, article 8 and termination proceedings in the four
largest boroughs of New York since joining CFR in May 2004. She directly supervises CFR's
staff attorneys, paralegal and law interns and co-directs one of CFR's interdisciplinary CAT teams.
Ms. Fassler also oversees CFR's fellowship program. She conducts training sessions and
provides technical assistance to parents and practitioners and participates in various policy
initiatives at the city and state level, including as a member of the New York City Bar Association's
Family Court Committee. Ms. Fassler has worked in the child welfare field since 1996.
Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Fassler was an attorney at the Legal Aid Society -Juvenile Rights Practice,
where she served as a Law Guardian in child abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, custody,
visitation, delinquency and PINS proceedings. There, Ms. Fassler also worked in the Safe
Families Project, a pilot project that designated a court part and dedicated staff to front load
services to families affected by domestic violence. Ms. Fassler graduated from the Syracuse
University College of Law and interned at JRP, the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Inc., and
the Syracuse University College of Law Children's Rights/Civil Clinic. She received a B.A.
from Brandeis University.
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Karen Fisher McGee, Esq., Appellate and Law Reform Supervisor, joined CFR in 2008.
She is responsible for all appeals filed and defended by CFR, and participates in legislative and policy reform
along with senior management. Ms. McGee came to CFR from the Richmond County District Attorney’s
Office where she was Chief of the Appeals Bureau for more than 20 years. She began her appellate career
as a staff attorney with – and then Director of -- the NYS Criminal Justice Appellate Reference Service, a
unit within the State’s Bureau of Prosecution & Defense Services that served as the appeals bureau for nearly
half of New York’s District Attorney’s offices. She next was tapped by then Chief Judge Lawrence H.
Cooke for the position of Assistant Deputy Counsel with the NYS Office of Court Administration; her primary
responsibility there was that of counsel to the Chief Judges’ Advisory Committee on Criminal Law & Procedure.
In addition to the legislative experience gained in that capacity, Ms. McGee, the first woman elected to office in
New York’s District Attorneys Association, was a long-time member of its legislative committee and also served on
the legislative committee of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.
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Wanjiro Gethaiga, LMSW, joined CFR in 2004 as a staff social worker and was
promoted to supervisor in September of 2007. She supervises CFR's staff social worker, parent
advocates, and social work interns, and co-directs one of CFR's current Community Advocacy Teams.
She also presents training sessions and participates in various policy initiatives throughout the city,
particularly in the area of meaningful visiting for children in foster care. She has worked
to establish citywide guidelines to educate and assist foster care agencies on having visits monitored
by Visit Hosts, and has participated in training at the city, state and national level on innovative
visiting practices. Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Gethaiga worked in California at the Casita
de San Jose and at Florence Crittenton, both group homes for teenage mothers and their children.
In New York, she was a foster care worker at Talbot Perkins Children's Services where she worked with
parents and children who were the subject of child protective and termination proceedings.
Ms. Gethaiga graduated from the New York University School of Social Work and the California State
University, Fullerton.
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Maura Keating, Esq. is a Litigation Supervisor who joined CFR in September of 2007.
She directly supervises staff attorneys, legal interns and is responsible for the supervision of the paralegal
team at CFR. She co-directs one of CFR's CAT teams, providing interdisciplinary legal representation
to parents who are the subject of ACS investigations and child welfare proceedings. Ms. Keating
also participates in various training and policy initiatives including the Fordham Interdisciplinary Center's
subcommittee on Teen Mothers. Prior to joining CFR, Ms. Keating was a staff attorney at The Legal
Aid Society's Juvenile Rights Practice, appearing as law guardian on abuse and neglect, custody and visitation,
paternity, termination of parental rights, PINS and juvenile delinquency petitions. Ms. Keating was
graduated from St. John's University School of Law. While in law school she served as a legal
intern with the Administration for Children's Services Family Court Legal Services in Queens Family Court.
She received her B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.
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