Prisoners' Legal Services of New York

David R. Marriott

Board Member

David Marriott is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He is the chair of the Practising Law Institute’s conference “Trial by Jury” and has been a repeat moderator of other PLI conferences, such as “Managing Complex Litigation.” Mr. Marriott is also the chair of the NYC Bar Series “Lessons from General Counsel: What Every InHouse Lawyer & Those Who Advise Them Need to Know.”

In 2010, Mr. Marriott was recognized by The Legal 500 for his work in the intellectual property arena. In 2006, Lawdragon named Mr. Marriott one of the legal profession’s new stars and, in 2011, selected him as one of 500 leading lawyers in America. He was also recognized by IAM Patent for his work in patent litigation for the past two years.

Mr. Marriott is admitted to practice before the state court of New York and, on the Federal level, before the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Federal, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Utah, the Eastern District of New York, the Eastern District of Michigan, the Northern District of California, the Southern District of New York, and the Western District of Michigan

Cornett L. Lewers, Sr.

Board Member

Cornett L. Lewers, Sr. is an attorney in the Law Office of Cornett L. Lewers. Mr. Lewers also serves as Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Responsibility & Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Xylem, Inc. In this position, Mr. Lewers is responsible for the development and deployment of all aspects of enterprise-wide global ethics & compliance programs including management of trade compliance, environmental, safety,heath & sustainability, ethics and security.

Mr. Lewers has also served as Xylem’s Vice President & Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer. Prior to that, Mr. Lewers served as the Vice President for Corporate Responsibility for the ITT Fluid & Motion Control division of ITT Corporation as well as Senior Counsel & Director of Corporate Ethics and Compliance for that same company.

Mr. Lewers is a 1982 graduate of Howard University School of Law.

David C. Leven

Board Member

David Leven has been on the PLS board since 2003. He is a graduate of the University of Rochester and Syracuse University College of Law. From 1969 to 1973, he was a staff attorney and deputy director of Monroe County Legal Assistance Corporation and between 1973 and 1979, he was the Executive Director. Between 1979 and 1999, he served as Executive Director of PLS.

From 2002-2016 he was the Executive Director of End of Life Choices New York and since then he has been its Senior Consultant. The mission of End of Life Choices New York is to improve care and expand choice at the end of life and provide high quality counseling, support and advocacy services to the terminally ill and family members and to those planning for the end of life.

David notes that it is important for him to be on the PLS board because he is deeply committed to ensuring that NYS prisoners’ receive high quality legal services and that PLS functions as well as possible with adequate funding. Because of his past experience, he believes that he can contribute constructively.

Alexis Karteron

Board Member

Professor Alexis Karteron is the Director of the Rutgers Constitutional Rights Clinic. Prior to joining Rutgers in September 2016, Professor Karteron was a senior attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union. At the NYCLU, she litigated complex constitutional cases involving police reform, the school-to-prison pipeline, the First Amendment, and voting rights. While at the NYCLU, Karteron served as lead counsel in one of three cases challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. Prior to joining the NYCLU, Karteron served as White House Associate Staff Secretary from 2009 to 2010. From 2007 to 2009, she was an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where she litigated voting rights cases in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

Alexis earned her J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard University. After clerking for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, she was a litigation associate at the New York law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, LLP, as a recipient of the Fried Frank/LDF fellowship.

Dorothy Keller

Treasurer

Dorothy Keller. After moving to New York City in 1978 to attend law school, Ms. Keller worked with the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society. Her first job as a lawyer was as General Counsel to the Harlem Restoration Project which had a program for ex-offender re-direction in a project which was renovating and managing neglected buildings in Harlem.

In 1994, Ms. Keller joined the firm of Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Goidel, P.C. as a specialist in low-income and supportive housing and became a partner in 2006. A good part of her practice is with supportive housing not-for-profit organizations who provide not only permanent housing, but also programmatic assistance to ex-offenders.

Thomas Curran

Board Vice Chair

Thomas Curran graduated from Georgetown University (A.B., 1986) and Fordham University School of Law (J.D., 1989). After law school, Tom practiced at two large international firms from 1989 through 1995. In addition to practicing as part of those firms’ white collar criminal defense departments, he litigated a case on behalf of a person sentenced to life in New York State Prison as part of the United Stated District Court for the Southern District of New York’s pro bono program. From 1995 through 2001, Tom served as an Assistant District Attorney under Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney of New York County. Since returning to private practice, Tom’s practice has been focused upon white collar criminal defense, internal corporate investigations, and regulatory compliance.

He is currently a partner in the firm of Peckar & Abramson, P.C. in New York, New York. Tom is a regular guest, commentator on criminal law matters for various media outlets, including CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Bloomberg. Tom serves on various civic and bar committees, including as a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Committee on City Marshals, as co-Founder and co-chair of the Morgenthau Alumni Group, as Chair of the Criminal Advocacy Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and as a member of the Character and Fitness Committee for the First Department. Tom is the son of former PLS Chair Paul J. Curran. Tom shares the profound conviction of his father that fundamental justice requires that the prisoners in our correctional institutions have access to quality legal services.

Dr. Robert B. Greifinger

Board Member

ROBERT B. GREIFINGER, M.D. is a health care policy and quality management consultant. His work focuses on the design, management, and quality improvement in correctional health care systems. He has extensive experience in the development and management of complex community and institutional health care programs, and strengths in the bridging of clinical and public policy interests.

Dr. Greifinger is Professor (Adjunct) of Health and Criminal Justice and Distinguished Research Fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Dr. Greifinger has published extensively in the area of correctional health care. He is a frequent speaker on public policy, communicable disease control and quality management in corrections. Dr. Greifinger was the principal investigator for the Report to Congress on Seizing Public Health Opportunities through Correctional Health Care, published in 2002. Dr. Greifinger is the editor of Public Health Behind Bars: From Prisons to Communities, Springer, New York 2007, and Co-Editor, International Journal of Prisoner Health.

David Cohen

Board Member

David Cohen. Since 1975, Mr. Cohen has been in the private of law concentrating on the defense of criminal matters in State and Federal Courts. Prior to opening his own practice he was a Staff Attorney with the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society. From 1980 -1982 David was a Member of the New York State Assembly.

He currently serves as Counsel to Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, Chair of the Codes Committee of the New York State Assembly. David is a Vice President of the New York State Bar Association and serves on the Executive Committee. He is a member of the NYSBA Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. NYSBA President Michael Getnick nominated David for membership on the PLS Board. He is a past president of the Queens County Bar Association.

Kristin Booth Glen

Board Member

Hon. Kristin Booth Glen joined the Board in 1996 while she was still Dean of CUNY School of Law. She started her career as a civil rights lawyer after graduating from Columbia Law School and clerking for the Second Circuit at Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard, where she litigated a number of prisoners’ rights cases, most notably Sostre v. Rockefeller (solitary confinement; retaliation for First Amendment activity) and Gomez v. Miller, a case involving misuse of penal facilities for persons found incompetent to stand, which was successful in the U.S. Supreme Court. She was elected as a civil court judge in 1980 and elected to New York State Supreme Court in 1986. As a judge, she wrote major, cutting-edge decisions in a wide range of areas including AIDS, sexual harassment, the rights of the physically and mentally challenged, the elderly, and on constitutional issues such as free speech.

A founder of the Women’s Law Clinic at New York University, she has been a legal educator in various law schools for more than twenty years. In 1995, she was appointed Dean of the City University of New York School of Law. In 1998, Glen was named Law School Dean of the Year by the National Association for Public Interest Law and in 1999, she was honored by the National Lawyers Guild. Judge Glen notes that coming to PLS was really a return to her roots, and to issues about which she has always cared deeply.

Martine M. Beamon

Board Member

Martine M. Beamon is a partner in Davis Polk’s Litigation Department and a former federal prosecutor, has successfully represented individuals and institutions in their most critical situations. Her matters have included grand jury and regulatory investigations, representing both companies and individuals in connection with allegations of insider trading, commodities fraud, market manipulation and other securities fraud, foreign corrupt practices and pharmaceutical marketing violations, among other areas. Her complex civil matters have involved allegations under the False Claims Act, consumer protection and whistleblower provisions, and other state and federal statutes.

Ms. Beamon also has participated in a number of confidential internal investigations on behalf of clients facing potential criminal and regulatory exposure and has advised corporate boards of directors and subcommittees on matters of corporate governance and compliance. In addition, the FBI recently requested that she train its agents on insider trading. She also serves, on a pro bono basis, on the Criminal Justice Act panel for the Southern District of New York, representing indigent defendants in federal criminal proceedings. Ms. Beamon served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, from 1995 to 2000, where she conducted numerous investigations and criminal trials.