Networking Reception

Welcome & Event Overview

Keynote – Jennifer Mathis

Award Presentation

Acceptance Remarks

Honoree Toast
Jim Conroy, Co-President, Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation
Max Lapertosa, Senior Litigation Attorney, Center for Public Representation
Judith Gran, Partner, Reisman Gran & Zuba LLP
Tia Nelis, Coordinator, Self-Advocate Engagement

Closing Remarks

Mix & Mingle

Adrián E. Alvarez is an Assistant Professor of Law and teaches Disability and the Law, Professional Responsibility, and Introduction to Law. His scholarship seeks to reimagine federal disability antidiscrimination law and policy and has appeared in the St. John’s Law Review and the online companion to the Arizona State Law Journal.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Professor Alvarez served as Special Counsel to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where he advised the Department on its rulemaking to update regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a statute that prohibits disability discrimination in all public K-12 schools.
Prior to joining the St. John’s Law faculty, Professor Alvarez was a Practitioner-in-Residence with the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, where he supervised student attorneys in special education cases and co-taught the clinic seminar. He has worked as an attorney for Children’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., representing parents in special education cases, and as a federal law clerk to the Honorable David Briones of the Western District of Texas (El Paso Division).

Before he started his legal career, Professor Alvarez was a humanitarian aid worker in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, and a researcher for a Brazilian human rights organization based in Rio de Janeiro. He holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.P.A. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

Michael J. Brogioli serves as the Executive Director of TASH. Michael joined TASH in October 2020 and brings over twenty five years of senior management experience in the nonprofit sector including past leadership positions as executive director of the Autism Coalition for Research and Education, the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD) and RESNA. Brogioli also has experience working on Capitol Hill where he served as a Jacob Javits Fellow and legislative assistant on health care issues to U.S. Senator Tom Daschle. Prior to joining TASH, Michael worked on an interim basis as a Senior Advisor to Eurasia Programs for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he advised programs involving civil society organizations including those that advocate for people with disabilities. Brogioli earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a BA in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame. He resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland.

Seth Galanter is the founder of Rule of Law Firm PLLC, a Washington, DC civil rights practice focused on disability rights, LGBTQ rights, and federal litigation.

Seth has spent more than three decades litigating and shaping federal civil rights law. During the Obama and Biden Administrations, Seth served in multiple senior roles at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, including as Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. At the National Center for Youth Law, he led the litigation team that successfully challenged the first Trump Administration’s rollback of federal regulations protecting students with disabilities from significant racial disproportionality in special education. He has argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including one on behalf of a state protection and advocacy organization, and dozens of cases in the federal courts of appeals.

Seth is the 2026 recipient of the COPAA Diane Lipton Award, presented to an attorney whose career reflects outstanding advocacy on behalf of children with disabilities and their families. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Edley Center on Law and Democracy.

Judith A. Gran, Esq. practiced law at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia from 1984 to 2009. She served as Director of Disability Projects from 1998 to 2009. She has conducted class action litigation to obtain community services for institutionalized persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Montana, California, Illinois and Tennessee. Her work as counsel for the Arc of Pennsylvania and the plaintiff class during the implementation phase of the consent decree in Halderman v. Pennhurst from 1986 through 1998 led to significant improvements in community service systems in Philadelphia and other counties. Ms. Gran represents special education students in administrative and judicial proceedings in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states, including the class action suit Gaskin v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a case brought to enforce the least restrictive environment mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that is now in the implementation phase. She is a currently a partner at Reisman Gran & Zuba LLP.

Jasmine Harris is a law and inequality legal scholar with expertise in disability law, antidiscrimination law, and evidence. Her work addresses law’s capacity to define and advance social norms of inclusion. Her evidence scholarship explores topics such as the application of critical theories to evidentiary rules, principles, and doctrine.
Her recent academic articles have or will appear in such leading law reviews and journals as the Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, UCLA Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, among others. Harris also co-edits a preeminent evidence treatise, McCormick on Evidence, and is currently working on a co-edited book, Critical Evidence Law.

Harris also writes frequently about disability and equality law for popular audiences. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Magazine, and Tribune Wire, in addition to academic blogs such as the American Constitution Society’s Expert Forum and the Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center’s Bill of Health. She is regularly quoted in media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Forbes, CNBC, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, Chronicle of Higher Education, Guardian, Harper’s BAZAAR, and USA Today.
A range of federal and state lawmakers and legal advocates regularly seek Harris’s opinion on issues of legislative and policy reforms related to disability laws and civil litigation. Harris is a member of the inaugural Steering Committee tasked with developing a National Smithsonian Museum of Disability History and Culture. She also serves on the Board of Directors for The Arc of the United States, one of the largest national disability rights organizations, and as Chair of the Legal Advocacy Subcommittee to advise the organization on impact litigation. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Harris was appointed by the United States Chief Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to serve as Co-Reporter for Third Circuit’s Committee on Model Civil Jury Instructions.
Harris is a recipient of the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in Teaching at Penn Carey Law and has received recognition for her teaching and mentorship of students at other universities.

Harris graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in Latin American & Caribbean Studies. She received her juris doctorate from Yale Law and clerked for the late Honorable Harold Baer, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. She has worked in both private and public interest law. Harris practiced in the areas of complex commercial litigation, securities, and government investigations as a Senior Associate with WilmerHale. She also worked as a staff attorney at Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, where she assisted grassroots advocacy campaigns to advance racial justice in education and address the school to prison pipeline through legal, policy, and strategic communications effort

Sarah Lorr is the associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Her research focuses on disability and family law, specifically studying the role of disability in the family regulation system, the right to marry, the imposition of guardianship, and broader conceptions of the American Family. She teaches courses in disability law, family law, and torts.

Professor Lorr’s recent scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Oklahoma Law Review, and the Columbia Journal of Race & the Law. For her article Disabling Families, Lorr received honorable mention in the Association of American Law Schools 2024 Scholarly Papers Competition. Professor Lorr is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Family Justice Law Center and the chair of the AALS Section on Disability Law.
Prior to joining Maryland Carey Law, Professor Lorr clerked for Judge Joan N. Ericksen, U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, and for Judge Boyce F. Martin III, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Subsequently, she was a supervising attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice in Brooklyn, N.Y., providing free legal representation to parents at risk of losing their children to foster care. In that capacity, she also represented parents in a wide range of matters related to family law, including termination of parental rights, custody, and family offense proceedings. She has also represented adults seeking to avoid the imposition or continuation of guardianships. Professor Lorr previously taught at Brooklyn Law School where she co-directed the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic and taught doctrinal law.

Leslie Seid Margolis graduated from Princeton in 1982 with an A.B. degree in comparative literature. She graduated from Stanford Law School and later that year began to work at Disability Rights Maryland, Maryland’s protection and advocacy agency, where she is a
managing attorney and policy counsel. In her practice at DRM, she supervises DRM’s mental health work, handles individual special education cases and engages in special education policy work at the local, state and national levels in addition to litigation focused on protecting the rights of children in the foster care system. Ms. Margolis has extensive experience with systemic urban school reform litigation, having co-counseled the 28 year Baltimore City Vaughn G. case for many years.  Ms. Margolis is a frequent presenter at local, state and national trainings and conferences, and has published technical assistance documents, manuals, and articles.  She has been a member of several national and state boards, including the board of directors of TASH. She is a recipient of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation’s Benjamin L. Cardin Lifetime Achievement Award, the Arc Maryland’s President’s Cup, and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocate’s Diane Lipton Award for Outstanding Advocacy, among other awards for her advocacy work. She and her husband have two daughters, one of whom has significant developmental disabilities and was fully included in general education throughout her school career and currently lives a vibrant and meaningful life in the community through
Maryland’s self-directed services waiver program.

Melanie Reeves Miller is a seasoned professional with over three decades of experience in disabilities and human services. She is widely recognized for her expertise in advancing systems that support individuals with disabilities, particularly through her leadership in the implementation and oversight of federal class action litigation. Her work has been instrumental in addressing unnecessary institutionalization and promoting the rights of individuals with disabilities to transition from institutional and congregate long-term care settings into integrated community-based environments.

Megan Rusciano is a Managing Attorney with Disability Rights Maryland, Maryland’s Protection and Advocacy agency for people with disabilities where she currently manages the Developmental Disabilities and Health Care team. Rusciano has previously worked as an attorney at the Center for Public Representation and The Arc of the United States. In those roles she was involved in systemic litigation and other legal advocacy to advance the rights of people with disabilities under federal disability rights laws in areas including of voting access, effective communication, elimination of subminimum wage employment, alternatives to guardianship, and access to home and community based services. Rusciano holds JDs from American University Washington College of Law in Washington DC and the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada.

Steven Schwartz is currently the Special Counsel for the Center for Public Representation, after founding the Center in 1976 and then serving as its Executive Director for 38 years. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, he represented thousands of people with disabilities over the past fifty years. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, successfully resolved a number of damage cases for institutionalized individuals with disabilities, and litigated dozens of class action cases that challenge the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in psychiatric hospitals, developmental disability institutions, nursing facilities, and juvenile justice settings. He has provided training and technical assistance to disability rights programs in more than 40 states, authored a number of law review articles, and served on the faculty of the Harvard and Western New England Law Schools.

Hezzy Smith, Esq. is a trilingual attorney, a proud sibling, and Director of Advocacy Initiatives. He’s responsible for much of HPOD’s self-advocacy programming. He has worked closely with self-advocacy and disabled peoples’ organizations both in the United States and abroad to advocate, research, and produce awareness-raising materials. His Spanish, English, and Bangla language materials have shaped disability rights strategic litigation and important decisions by national and regional courts, and his disability rights scholarship has appeared in collections published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, as well as both U.S. and international law reviews.

Kimberly Tissot is a nationally recognized disability first and largest disability-led Center for Independent Living. As a disabled woman and cancer survivor, Kimberly brings lived experience to her work- fueling her relentless advocacy to ensure people with disabilities are not just included, but leading the decisions that impact their lives.

With more than two decades of leadership, Kimberly has driven major policy and cultural shifts across South Carolina. She co-authored and helped pass the South Carolina Persons with Disabilities Right to Parent Act, led efforts to eliminate subminimum wage for disabled workers, and continues to push for full implementation of Employment First policies statewide. Her work spans healthcare, education, employment, transportation, and housing — recognizing that true independence requires all systems to work together.

Kimberly is also a fierce defender of disability civil rights at both the state and national level. Most notably, her advocacy directly influenced the South Carolina Attorney General’s decision to withdraw the state from the Section 504 lawsuit, protecting critical federal disability protections for millions of Americans. She is known for holding systems accountable while building solutions that center disabled voices.

Beyond policy, Kimberly leads innovative programs serving thousands of South Carolinians each year, including youth transition, employment initiatives, and disaster preparedness efforts for people with disabilities. She is a sought-after speaker, trainer, and thought leader, known for her bold, unapologetic approach to advancing equity and dismantling outdated systems. Kimberly’s work is grounded in one core belief: nothing about us, without us. And she is proving every day what happens when disabled people lead.

Lindsey Weinstock is a partner at Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP in Baltimore, where she litigates civil rights cases on behalf of individuals and organizations in state and federal courts. For more than a decade, until May of 2025, Lindsey had the honor of serving as a Trial Attorney in the Disability Rights Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. There, she worked to enforce the integration mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act across the country by conducting investigations, complex civil litigation, settlement negotiations, and monitoring implementation of remedial orders, consent decrees, and settlement agreements. She also provided legal and policy counsel to and collaborated with agencies across the federal government regarding legislative, regulatory, and policy matters affecting a range of health care services and programs. Notably, Lindsey was lead trial counsel for the United States in United States v. Florida, a case in which the United States proved during a two-week bench trial that the State of Florida was unnecessarily institutionalizing hundreds of children with disabilities in nursing homes and placing hundreds of others at serious risk of such segregation. For several years, Lindsey taught the Disability Law Seminar as an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Lindsey was a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. She graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College of Columbia University and received her JD, cum laude, from New York University School of Law.

Jonathan Zimring, Esq. principal in the Zimring Law Firm, has a primary practice in education law and civil rights with decades of experience in special education rights. Mr. Zimring, a graduate of Duke University School of Law, was Director of the Georgia Mental Disability Law Project, by the ABA Commission on Mental Disability to provide representation to persons with disabilities and then education law specialist for the Georgia Legal Services Program. He has been chairman of the State Bar of Georgia Mental Health and the Law Committee and Chairman of its School and College Law Section, the ABA/Younger Lawyer’s Section on Law and the Handicapped. He has presented and written for numerous CLE programs for federal and Georgia judges, attorneys, advocates, parents and educators on educational rights, special education and civil rights issues. He was guardian ad litem in Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W. ex rel Zimring, 527 U.S. 581 (1999), which established that separate placement and services was discrimination under the ADA.

A sample of other special education cases include: Georgia Ass’n. for Retarded Citizens v. McDaniel, 716 F.2d 1565 (11th Cir. 1983) (extended school year services for children); Georgia Conference of Branches of NAACP v. State of Georgia, 775 F.2d 1403 (11th Cir. 1985) (inappropriate placement of children of color in special education classes); Mitten v. Muscogee County School District, 877 F.2d 932 (11th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1072 (1990) (independent claim for attorney fees and costs); Greer v. Rome City School Dist., 950 F.2d 688 (11th Cir. 1991) (least restrictive environment); Walker County School District v. Bennett, 203 F.3d. 1293 (11th Cir.), cert denied, 121 S.Ct. 670 (2000) (procedure for the trial of IDEA cases); Georgia Department of Education v. Derrick C., 314 F.3d 545 (11th Cir. 2002) (provision of services to 3 year old disabled students). He has appeared before Federal and Georgia appellate courts and as counsel for amicus at all levels of federal and state court. Mr. Zimring is on the COPAA Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He was awarded COPAA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2026.