Senate Confirms Eight Nominees to LSC’s Board of Directors

WASHINGTON – Eight presidential nominees were confirmed by the U.S. Senate today to serve on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).

LSC is the single largest provider of civil legal assistance for low income people in the nation. It is headed by an 11-member Board of Directors appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. By law, the board is bipartisan: no more than six members may be of the same political party.

In a vote this afternoon, the Senate confirmed:

• Robert J. Grey, Jr., retired Senior Counsel at Hunton & Williams LLP and current President of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity based in Richmond.
  
  
• Matthew Keenan, a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP based in Kansas City. He previously served as chair of the firm's Pro Bono Committee for eight years and currently serves on the board of Legal Aid of Western Missouri. He was a columnist for the Kansas City Star for seventeen years.
  
  
• Abigail L. Kuzma, co-founder and former Executive Director of the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic and former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Indiana Attorney General. She currently serves as a member of LSC’s Governance and Performance Review Committee and Delivery of Legal Services Committee.
  
  
• John G. Levi, LSC’s current Chair and a partner at Sidley Austin LLP based in Chicago. He has been Chair since April 7, 2010.
  
  
• John G. Malcolm, Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and Director and Senior Legal Fellow of the Meese Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He previously served as General Counsel for the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom and as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the Motion Picture Association of America.
  
  
• Frank X. Neuner, Jr., a partner at NeunerPate based in Lafayette, Louisiana. He is a past Chair of the Louisiana Public Defender Board and a past President of the Louisiana State Bar Association. He currently serves as a member of LSC’s Governance and Performance Review Committee and Operations and Regulations Committee.
  
  
• Julie Reiskin, Executive Director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition in Denver.
  
  
• Gloria Valencia-Weber, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico Law School in Albuquerque. 

Four of the nominees currently serve on the board: Robert J. Grey, Jr.; John G. Levi; Julie Reiskin; and Gloria Valencia-Weber. Matthew Keenan, Abigail L. Kuzma, John G. Malcolm, and Frank X. Neuner, Jr are new appointees.

Victor Maddox, a partner in the Louisville, Kentucky law firm of Fultz Maddox Dickens PLC; Laurie Mikva, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and Commissioner on the Illinois Court of Claims; and Father Pius Pietrzyk, Chair of the Department of Pastoral Studies and Assistant Professor of Canon Law at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California, also serve on the board.

Malcolm was designated to replace Martha Minow, former Dean of Harvard Law School and the school’s current 300th Anniversary University Professor, who has served as LSC’s Vice Chair since 2010.  Keenan will replace Harry J.F. Korrell III, a partner in the Seattle office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.