OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jordana Furman has her own private law practice.  In addition, she volunteers countless hours at the ELDR Center. 

After graduating from law school, Jordana volunteered at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County and the Public Law Center. 

Jordana holds an undergraduate degree from California State University Long Beach, a MBA from  Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and a law degree from the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University.

D’lorah Hughes is the Director of Externships at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.  Prior to joining UCI Law in July 2016, she was Director of Clinical Education at Wayne State Law School.  Prior to this role, Professor Hughes was Associate Director of Clinical Education and Director of Externships at Wayne State Law. 

Previously, she practiced law as a deputy public defender for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office in California and as a staff attorney at the AIDS Legal Assistance Project at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Janis Graham Jack of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

She holds leadership positions on the Board of Directors for the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) and the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education, Externships Committee. 

Reza Torkzadeh is a nationally recognized plaintiff’s trial attorney at TorkLaw who has dedicated his professional career to the pursuit of justice by exclusively representing victims in personal injury and wrongful death cases. Reza has handled numerous high-profile cases in both state and federal courts, and has served in leadership roles in litigation at the national level. He has been featured for legal commentary by the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, New York Daily News, Metro News, Christian Science Monitor, KUSI TV, and many other news outlets and publications.

Reza is a frequently invited guest speaker and has lectured across the country on the practice of law and the civil justice system. He is a proud Honorary Board Member of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Charity, an active member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and President’s Club Member of the Consumer Attorneys of California.

Reza is the co-author of the book, Accidents Happen: A Consumer’s Guide to the Personal Injury and Wrongful Death System, which is now it its second edition and continues to receive wide acclaim and endorsement from the legal community.

​Betsy Handler graduated from ​the University of Law School in 1977. She worked as a trial attorney with the Department of Justice in Washington D. C. and ultimately became the Assistant Director of the Torts branch. 

In 1985, Betsy relocated to Los Angeles and joined the Civil Division at the U. S. Attorney's Office. She also volunteered legal aid with Bet Tzedek Legal Services for several years. In 1988, Betsy joined a large New York-based law firm, and then in 2004, she became the Litigation Director at the Inner City Law Center near Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles. The services focused on housing and eviction litigation for extremely low-income clients, which included successful suits against several major LA slumlords. 

Betsy also served on the LA Rent Control Commission, appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as well as two State Bar committees devoted to the delivery of legal services to underserved populations.    

 Carol Sobel is a civil rights lawyer and advocate. Carol graduated from Douglass College in 1968 and the People’s College of Law in 1978. She spent twenty years working for the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, most recently as Senior Staff Counsel. In 1997, she left the ACLU to start her own law practice. 

Ms. Sobel has served as the lead attorney on several cases representing the homeless against the City of Los Angeles. She litigated the landmark 2006 case Jones vs. City of Los Angeles, in which the Ninth Circuit ruled that it was illegal to arrest people sleeping on the street when there were no available shelter beds. She was also lead counsel in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, preventing the seizure and destruction of the property of unhoused persons, and Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles, invalidating a Los Angeles ordinance preventing criminalizing unhoused persons living in a vehicle. More recently, Ms. Sobel was co-council in Mitchell vs. City of Los Angeles, which overturned a 2016 city ordinance limiting homeless people’s property to what would fit in a 60-gallon bag. Ms. Sobel has also tackled similar issues in Orange County; the settlement in a recent lawsuit decriminalized enforcement and required county officials to adopt a less punitive approach towards residents of a homeless encampment in the Santa Ana riverbed. 

Ms. Sobel serves on the board of directors for several organizations that advocate for proactive approaches to civil rights issues, including the National Police Accountability Project. She regularly gives talks on her work and is currently an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School where she teaches a civil right practicum. Ms. Sobel was recognized as a highly accomplished Super Lawyer for civil rights for 2004-2021 and was named California Lawyer of the Year for her work on behalf of unhoused persons and those exercising First Amendment rights to protest against the government. 

  Richard McNeil is a partner in the Environment & Natural Resources Group and also is a partner in the Commercial Litigation Group at Crowell & Moring LLP.  Rick is a trial attorney with numerous jury, bench and administrative trials to his credit, particularly in the areas of environmental, land use, tort and product liability, real estate and business litigation. Rick’s environmental experience spans nearly all aspects of federal and California law, including Superfund, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, Proposition 65 and green chemistry. Rick also has substantial experience in cases involving claims for personal injury or property damage claimed to be the result of exposure to mold, lead, asbestos, pathogens, and other toxins. Rick is recognized for his knowledge about CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) and  has served as lead counsel or co-counsel in numerous CEQA cases through the trial and appellate phases. 

Rick is a member of the American Law Institute, where he contributes to the current revision of the Restatement of the Law, 4th, Property. He also is a member of the Litigation Section and the Environment, Energy and Resources Section of the American Bar Association and the Real Estate, Business Litigation and Environmental Law Sections of the Orange County Bar Association. Rick also was appointed a member of the City of Newport Beach Water Quality and Coastal Tidelands Committee. Rick just completed a six-year term as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Bar Association while remaining the Co-Chair of the OCBA’s Diversity Committee. Rick also is a Member of the Board of Directors for Legal Aid of Orange County and is the Chair Emeritus of the Pacific Chorale, a symphonic choral organization that provides free after-school music education to inner city children. 

   Denise Carter is the global vice president of Diversity and Communications at designory. Denise leads their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives and oversees Corporate Communications globally. Prior to joining designory, Denise worked concurrently as The Torklaw Firm’s Chief People Officer and LawWorks’s Chief Community Officer. At The TorkLaw Firm, Denise led development and implementation of the firm's people and culture strategy, including diversity, equity and inclusion, talent recruitment, hiring and development, HR policies and programs, and employee engagement. At LawWorks, she led the business development and marketing team, oversaw community engagement and satisfaction, strategic partnerships, and brand and culture management as well as initiated and developed relationships strengthening the LawWorks community and ensured the smooth running of ongoing operations. 

Denise holds an undergraduate degree from University of Colorado Boulder, a MBA from University of Denver - Daniels College of Business and a law degree from the Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University.