Paul Nathanson, Executive Director

Paul Nathanson returns to NSCLC after having served as the first Executive Director of NSCLC from 1972-1980. He was the director of the University of New Mexico Institute of Public Law and a member of the faculty of the University’s law school from 1980 until 2005.  He is now Emeritus Faculty at the Law School. He has served as co-chair of the University of New Mexico Center for Aging Research, Education and Service (UNM CARES) and chair of the New Mexico Association of Geriatric Education (NMAGE). He was president of the American Society of Aging (1984-1986) and a member of its Executive Committee (1982-88). Paul was a founding member of the American Bar Association Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly, and was National Secretary of the Gray Panthers. He is Past Chair of the Board of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and still serves on the Board of Directors.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Legal Aid Society and KNME, New Mexico’s public television station. Since 1972, he has received and administered several million dollars in grants and awards primarily in the field of legal services for the elderly.  He has also been involved in the field of social marketing and has special interest in video production as a means of community organization.  He has won numerous awards, including regional Emmys, for this work.

Georgia Burke, Directing Attorney

Georgia Burke co-directs NSCLC’s Oakland Office.  She joined NSCLC in 2005, where she has worked primarily on issues related to Medicare Part D affecting low-income beneficiaries, including dual eligibles, and limited-English proficient (LEP) beneficiaries.  Georgia spearheads NSCLC’s extensive administrative Medicare advocacy with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and has drafted and coordinated joint comments among state and national advocacy organizations that led to significant improvements in agency guidance and consumer communications for dual eligibles and LEP beneficiaries.  She plays a key role in NSCLC’s legislative advocacy, and recently drafted Medicare language access provisions that were included in the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection (CHAMP) bill that passed the House of Representatives in August, 2007.  Georgia has also submitted testimony at Congressional hearings on Part D and lobbied extensively for changes in the Medicare Part D statute.  She is a leading national expert on Medicare Part D appeal rights.  Georgia’s work at NSCLC follows almost 20 years in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Oakland devoted to administrative and legislative advocacy.  While in private practice in Oakland, she was a volunteer attorney with the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Volunteer Legal Services Program, handling SSI disability appeals.  Georgia is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (1983), where she was an editor of Law and Policy in International Business. She has a B.A. with senior honors from Manhattanville College and was a National Defense Foreign Language Fellow at the University of Southern California.

Eric Carlson, Directing Attorney

Eric Carlson has specialized in long-term care since 1990, and is one of the nation’s leading consumer experts on nursing homes and assisted living facilities. He counsels attorneys from across the country in issues relating to long-term care, and also participates in litigation on residents’ behalf. He is the author of numerous publications and articles, including Long Term Care Advocacy (LexisNexis), the leading legal treatise on long-term care issues. His consumer publications include 20 Common Nursing Home Problems, and How to Resolve Them and (with co-author and fellow NSCLC attorney Katharine Bau Hsiao) The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Nursing Home Care (Taylor Trade).

Mr. Carlson speaks frequently on long-term care topics to attorneys, social workers, consumers, and others.  Recent presentations have taken him to Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, Texas, and other states.

Mr. Carlson is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota, and received his legal education from the Boalt Hall School of Law of the University of California at Berkeley. Following law school he served as a law clerk for a federal judge, worked in a fellowship in public interest law, and then served as Director of the Nursing Home Advocacy Project of Bet Tzedek Legal Services of Los Angeles.

Katharine Bau Hsiao, Directing Attorney

Katharine Bau Hsiao co-directs NSCLC’s Oakland Office and is working on long term care and Medicare Part D issues.  Katharine is a co-author of the Baby Boomer’s Guide to Nursing Home Care (Taylor Trade, August, 2006), and Medicare Part D: State and Local Efforts to Assist Vulnerable Beneficiaries (Commonwealth Fund, May, 2008) and numerous other guides to assist advocates in navigating low income health programs for seniors.  Prior to coming to NSCLC in 2005, Katharine served as a Managing Attorney at Legal Assistance for Seniors in Oakland, California for ten years.  She was a key co-founder of the Alameda County Legal Language Project which provides trained interpreters and translators to legal services providers, and has led local, regional and national trainings on Cultural Competency, Language Access, and a variety of substantive elder law areas.  Katharine has also served as Interim Director of the Legal Aid Association of California, as Assistant Director of Career Planning for Minorities and Public Interest/Public Service at Boalt Hall School of Law, and as a private practice elder law attorney.  Katharine is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale University and a member of Phi Beta Kappa (1982); she has a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley (1988) and an M.Div. from the American Baptist Seminary of the West (2000).

Gerald McIntyre, Directing Attorney

Gerald McIntyre has more than 30 years of experience in legal services advocacy. He has worked as a staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services; as Executive Director of Southern Tier Legal Services in Bath, NY; and as a lecturer and staff attorney at Cornell Law School. He joined the staff of NSCLC in 1993, and has since provided support and co-counseling to countless legal services and other elder law attorneys on Social Security and SSI issues. Prior to his law career, Jerry was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala. Jerry graduated from the State University of New York and received his law degree from Yale Law School.

Sergio Eduardo Munoz, Staff Attorney
Sergio Eduardo Munoz is a staff attorney for the Federal Rights Project. Most recently, he was the Public Policy Director of a health reform organization where he coordinated advocacy for the amelioration of health difficulties facing adolescents of color and limited income. This position built upon Sergio’s work directing Latino outreach in the greater Denver area for federal Democratic candidates in the successful 2008 elections. He specialized in bringing first-time voters into the political process, preventing voter suppression, and laying the groundwork for a sustainable and diverse political majority. A graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School, he has completed legal fellowships at the ACLU of Michigan, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Pediatric Advocacy Initiative. Prior to starting law school, Sergio was a social worker for foster children with medical conditions and a civil rights and liberties investigator of police misconduct in New York City.

Rochelle Bobroff, Director, Federal Rights Project

Rochelle worked with AARP Foundation Litigation from 1999 until recently. Rochelle’s very first legal job was working as a law clerk for the founder of NSCLC's Federal Rights Project, Herb Semmel, at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. Before working at AARP, Rochelle was a staff attorney for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, addressing Medicaid, SSI and other federal benefits issues. Practically all of her career since then has been devoted to public interest and high-level federal rights issues. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics at the University of Chicago, Rochelle graduated from Yale Law School in 1987. While at law school, Rochelle was a finalist in the Yale Law School moot court competition and published a Comment on subject matter jurisdiction in Social Security cases in the Yale Law and Policy Review.

Gene Coffey, Staff Attorney

Gene Coffey has been an attorney in NSCLC’s DC office since 2002.  He specializes in Medicaid’s coverage for long-term care services and also serves as the project director for NSCLC’s National Legal Resource Center grant from the U.S. Administration on Aging. He has written and lectured extensively on Medicaid, and also has litigated on behalf of Medicaid beneficiaries in several different states.  Most recently, he has focused on the “rebalancing” of the nation’s delivery of long-term care.  His recent articles and papers on this topic include: Narrowing Medicaid’s LTC Coverage? The Implications of the DRA’s HCBS Benefit,” 9 Marquette Elder's Advisor 131 (2007); Shaping the Future of Long-Term Care: Aging and Disability Resource Centers and the Role of Title IIIB Attorneys, 42 Clearinghouse Review 274 (Sept.-Oct. 2008); Money Follows the Person 101; and The Administration on Aging’s Nursing Home Diversion Program.  Gene has been cited in, among others, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Week.  He is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) and received a NAELA President’s Recognition Award in 2006 for his work on the organization’s Medicaid Strategies Task Force.  Prior to joining NSCLC, Gene was a staff attorney at a Virginia legal aid program from 1997 to 2002.  He graduated from Manhattan College and Vermont Law School, and is admitted to practice in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Simon Lazarus, Public Policy Counsel

Si is responsible for the Washington DC advocacy effort of the Herbert Semmel Federal Rights Project. Si has served as Associate Director of President Jimmy Carter’s White House Domestic Policy Staff (1977-81), as a partner in Powell, Goldstein, Frazer, and Murphy LLP (1981-2002), and as Senior Counsel to Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP (2002- ). He is a Trustee of the Center for Law and Social Policy, and writes frequently on issues of law and policy. His articles on federal rights have appeared in the Atlantic, the Washington Post Outlook (Sunday opinion) Section, the Democratic Leadership Council’s magazine Blueprint, and The American Prospect. His Atlantic Monthly article, “The Most Dangerous Branch?”, has been republished in two anthologies, The Best American Political Writing 2003 Royce Flippin, ed. (Avalon Press 2003), and Principles and Practice of American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 2d ed., Samuel Kernell and Steven S. Smith, eds. (CQ Press 2003). He graduated from Yale Law School, where he was Note & Comment Editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Kevin Prindiville, Staff Attorney

Kevin Prindiville is a Staff Attorney in the National Senior Citizens Law Center's Oakland office, where he works primarily on Medicare Part D issues. Kevin staffed a recent report, "Medicare Part D Plans Fail Limited English Proficient Beneficiaries," and was the primary author of "LIS: Redetermination and Redeeming," "Advocate’s Guide to Solving Problems Under Part D," and "The Basics: Medicare Part D for Low Income Advocates in California." Prior to joining NSCLC, Kevin worked as a staff attorney at the Pennsylvania Health Law Project in Philadelphia where he represented low-income individuals having trouble obtaining health care. While at PHLP, he worked primarily on issues affecting Medicaid recipients, the uninsured and individuals with mental health disabilities. Kevin is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of California, San Diego.

Anna Rich, Staff Attorney

Anna Rich is a staff attorney with NSCLC's Oakland Office.  She provides advocacy and support on behalf of consumers of California's In-Home Supportive Services program and dually eligible individuals receiving Medicare prescription drug coverage.  Anna also represents low-income seniors and individuals with disabilities in federal court.  Prior to joining NSCLC, she clerked for the United States District Court for Northern California and worked as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.  Anna graduated from Swarthmore College in 1997 and from Yale Law School in 2003.  She is admitted to the California Bar.