About HERA
Executive Director
Maeve Elise Brown is Executive Director of HERA. She has 19 years of experience as a public interest attorney, starting in Southern California at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. She then joined the staff of the East Bay Community Law Center, first as a staff attorney, then as director of the Housing and Economic Development Units. While at EBCLC, Ms. Brown was lead organizer and founder of People's Community Partnership Federal Credit Union, a community development credit union. Thereafter, Ms. Brown joined the staff of National Housing Law Project where she directed the Section 8 Homeownership, Predatory Lending, and Rural Housing Foreclosure Avoidance Initiatives, providing training and technical assistance nationally. Ms. Brown has published articles on affordable housing issues and authored a chapter in the American Bar Association’s Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development.
HERA's Board of Directors
Elizabeth Clark (Vice-President) is an attorney who has
worked extensively with clients in real estate, land use, banking and commercial
transactions and is now counsel with Fitzgerald, Abbott and Beardsley, in
Oakland, California. Previously with the Wendel Rosen law firm, Ms. Clark
has received commendations for her volunteer work, including serving as supervising
attorney for the Low Income Eviction Project for Landlords for the Alameda
County Volunteer Legal Services Corporation. She received the Individual
Distinguished Service Award in 2006 from the Alameda County Bar Association
and was named Volunteer of the Year in 2004 and Mentor of the Year in 2006
by the Alameda County Volunteer Legal Services Corporation. Ms. Clark is
admitted to the State Bar of California, the New York State Bar and the U.S.
Virgin Islands Bar.
Contact Info:
Fitzgerald, Abbott, Beardsley
1221 Broadway, 21st Floor, Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 451-3300
Scott Chang is an attorney specializing in representing
plaintiffs in fair housing cases. For more than a decade, Mr. Chang
has been a frequent workshop trainer and speaker at national fair housing
conferences and events. Before entering private practice, Mr. Chang
was a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County.
Thereafter, Mr. Chang managed his own practice and represented both
individual clients and fair housing organizations in a variety of housing
discrimination cases. Throughout this time, Mr. Chang made available
his expertise to several non-profit legal service providers throughout
California, serving either as primary or co-lead counsel on seminal
fair housing cases of which some have resulted in published decisions.
Mr. Chang has served on the State Bar of California Standing Committees
on Federal Courts and the Delivery of Legal Services, and he is a past
president of the Silicon Valley Asian Bar Association. In 2005, Mr.
Chang joined Relman and Dane, a civil rights law practice in Washington
D.C.
Contact Info:
Relman & Dane
1225 19th Street, Washington D.C. 20036
(202) 728-1888
Arthur Levy has 25 years of litigation experience
in business and financial services litigation. He is a business litigator
whose practice has historically focused on environmental, insurance
and securities cases. More recently, he has served as lead counsel
for consumers in class actions and unfair business practice cases in
the financial services area, most notably cases against Mercury Insurance
Group, Infinity Insurance Company, Eastwood Insurance Services, IKON
Business Solutions, Xerox, and Bank of America. He has been lead trial
counsel and tried several significant cases in the consumer, environmental,
real estate and securities fields. He has also been active in alternative
dispute resolution, serving as a neutral for the San Francisco federal
and state courts for the past several years. A native of San Francisco,
he attended Reed College and holds an M.A. in economics from The Johns
Hopkins University. He graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law in 1980,
where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the
Coif. His 25 years of litigation practice include associate positions
at Morrison & Foerster and Collette & Erickson in San Francisco
and nine years as a partner at Ewell & Levy before co-founding
Levy, Ram & Olson.
Contact Info:
Levy, Ram & Olson
639 Front Street, Fourth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 433-4949
Elizabeth A. Renuart is an attorney
with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC). She is a nationally-recognized
consumer law expert who focuses on predatory lending, truth in lending,
consumer credit and sustainable homeownership issues. She co-authored
two of NCLC's treatises, Truth in Lending and The Cost of Credit: Regulation
and Legal Challenges, as well as NCLC Report: Credit & Usury. She
is the principal author of the new Stop Predatory Lending: A Guide
for Legal Advocates. Ms. Renuart advocates on behalf of low-income
consumers before the Federal Reserve Board, HUD and other federal agencies.
She teaches consumer law to legal services, private and government
attorneys and other advocates around the country. She has been a legal
services attorney since 1977.
Contact Info:
NCLC
77 Summer Street, 10th Floor, Boston, MA 02110
(617) 542-8010
Roxanne Romell (President)is a private attorney, based in Oakland,
California. Her areas of expertise include tenant law, commercial real
estate, and residential real estate law. For the last 10 years, she
has operated her firm with a focus on social justice for low-income
tenants. She is licensed to practice in the United States District
Court, Northern District of California, as well as California State
Court and is a member of the Women Lawyers of Alameda County, National
Legal Aid & Defenders Association, East Bay Tenant's Bar Association,
ACORN and local bar associations in the East Bay. Her litigation experience
includes representation of 39 low-income, immigrant families in a habitability
case against a slumlord who owns 18 properties in Oakland, and representation
of four Chinese-American families in a suit against a multi-millionaire
developer.
Contact Info:
Law Office of Roxanne Romell
1814 Franklin St #503, Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 465-3210
Marina Jimenez is a victim witness consultant with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office specializing in cases involving Elder /Dependent Adult Abuse and Real Estate Fraud. In 2007, Marina was one of the recipient’s of a scholarship offered by the AARP Foundation, National Legal Services Training Project, to attend the National Law and Aging Conference held in Arlington Virginia. In 2002, Marina was hired by the Superior Court of California, Alameda County as the Elder Abuse/ domestic violence case manger to develop the Elder Protection Court, which is a model court for the State of California. Prior to 2002, Marina worked for Legal Assistance for Seniors as a senior legal assistant and Volunteer Legal Services Corporation, of the Alameda County Bar Association as pro bono placement case manager. Marina holds a paralegal certificate from Saint Mary’s College and has worked as a public interest paralegal for the last fourteen years.