Cindy M. Lott serves as lead counsel on the Charities Regulation and Oversight Project at the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School. The Charities Project provides a resource to state attorneys general in fulfilling charities enforcement responsibilities, facilitates communication among attorneys general, and institutionalizes the dialogue between attorneys general, the regulated communities and legal scholars specializing in charities and nonprofit studies. In 2006 and 2007, she was a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, co-teaching an advanced research seminar on state attorneys general. In addition, for the past two years Lott was a visiting clinical professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where she was the developer and director of the Nonprofit Legal Clinic, a clinic focused on the nature of general counsel and transactional practice within the context of nonprofits. Previously, Lott’s private practice focused on legal strategy for national advocacy groups and non-profit organizations, particularly with respect to state attorney general, non profit, and state policy issues.
Lott served as Chief Counsel to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston and was Deputy Counsel to the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Lott has worked at large firms in several major cities. She also served as Chief Counsel for Advisory Services in the Indiana Attorney General's office, and prior to that position was Section Chief for Administrative and Regulatory Litigation in that office. Her areas of practice have included constitutional, administrative and regulatory, business fraud, compliance, and employment litigation and advisory issues.
Lott is a 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and clerked for the United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Indiana and Massachusetts.
Karin Kunstler Goldman
Section Chief, Charities Bureau, New York
Charities Project Consultant
Karin Kunstler Goldman is a Section Chief in the New York State Attorney General's Charities Bureau. Karin was the 2001-2002 president of the National Association of State Charity Officials, is a founding member of the Governance Matters! and serves on the advisory board of the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics. From 2003 to 2007 she served on the advisory board of New York University's National Center on Philanthropy and the Law. In 2008, she was appointed to the Internal Revenue Service's Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt Entities.
Prior to joining the Attorney General's office, Karin was a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow and a staff attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation. As an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow in Hungary, Karin worked with not-for-profit organizations, government officials and legislative drafters in developing the law and regulations affecting the non-profit sector. She has consulted with government officials and legislative drafters in Ukraine and China on the development of statutory regulation of charitable organizations in those countries. In 2007, Karin was a guest of the People's Republic of China at its International Symposium on Charity Legislation in China at which she was a speaker. Karin and her husband, Neal, spent two years as Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal, West Africa. They have two grown children. Karin has a law degree from Rutgers University Law School, a BA from Connecticut College, and an MA from Columbia University.
Rachel Teitelbaum
Administrative Coordinator, Charities Law Project
Rachel Teitelbaum joined the National State Attorneys General Program as an Administrative Coordinator for the Program’s Charities Law Project in 2008. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in Sociology. Rachel’s interest in the public sector and public interest law particularly stems from her experience interning at The Death Penalty Clinic at U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, School of Law.
