Lead Counsel, Charities Project
National State Attorneys General Program
Cindy M. Lott serves as Senior Counsel to the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School, and within that Program serves as lead counsel to the Charities Regulation and Oversight Project as well as projects in the area of public health. The National State Attorneys General Program provides a nonpartisan resource to state attorneys general in fulfilling enforcement responsibilities and policy priorities, facilitates communication among attorneys general, and institutionalizes the dialogue between attorneys general, a spectrum of regulated communities and legal scholars specializing in various related substantive areas of policy and enforcement. Lott is a frequent speaker at national conferences in the areas of charities and nonprofit state regulation and governance. In 2006 and 2007, she was a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, co-teaching an advanced research seminar on state attorneys general and their role in state policymaking.
In 2013, Lott is teaching a graduate capstone course at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental affairs; akin to a clinical offering within the policy school, a capstone course is taken by MPA students in the final semester of their degree program and is designed to introduce graduating students to real-time work for clients on a multi-component policy project. In 2008 and 2009, 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; in the capacity of general counsel she served as a senior staff member and direct advisor to the CEO, overseeing all aspects of legal and compliance issues. Lott has worked at large firms in several major cities in the areas of employment, business litigation and compliance. She also served as Chief Counsel for Advisory Services in the Indiana Attorney General's office, where she oversaw the legal counsel for advising of state agencies as well as all contracts for the state of Indiana; prior to that position she served as Section Chief for Administrative and Regulatory Litigation in that office. Her areas of practice have included constitutional, administrative and regulatory, contracts, business fraud, compliance, and employment litigation and advisory issues.
Lott is a member of the national board for the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance; she also serves as a member of the Steering Committee for the formation of the new School of Public Health at Indiana University-Bloomington. She is currently serving in her third term as a board member for Volunteers in Medicine of Monroe County, a free medical clinic for the uninsured which she helped found in 2007.
Lott is a 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and clerked for the United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. She earned her B.A in Comparative Literature at Indiana University in 1989 and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Indiana and Massachusetts.
