Betsy Buchalter Adler
Betsy Buchalter Adler is a principal in the San Francisco firm of Adler & Colvin, where she specializes in the law of tax-exempt organizations with an emphasis on grantmaking charities, including family, company, and community foundations; internal governance issues; and international philanthropy. She is a past chair of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the Tax Section of the American Bar Association and was the founding chair of the Tax-Exempt Organizations Committee of the California State Bar’s Tax Section. She has served on the Internal Revenue Service’s Advisory Committee for Tax-Exempt and Governmental Entities (2005-2008) and on the advisory board of the National Center for Philanthropy and the Law at New York University. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of California Santa Cruz Foundation and on the Board of Advisors of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Ms. Adler received her B.A. in 1971 from the University of California (Santa Cruz) and her J.D. in 1982 from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California (Berkeley). She has taught the law of nonprofit organizations at Boalt Hall and lectures frequently on legal issues of interest to nonprofit organizations. She is the co-author of The Rules of the Road: A Guide to the Law of Charities in the United States. (Council on Foundations 2007).
Audrey Alvarado
Dr. Audrey Alvarado is an accomplished executive with extensive experience as a strategic and visionary leader. As the former executive director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, an national umbrella of state associations representing over 21,000 nonprofits, she led efforts to create the Nonprofit Congress, an unprecedentated effort to unite the nonprofit sector across the country. She led a similar movement for the Hispanic community, while executive director at the Latin American Research and Service Agency (Denver), with creation of the Hispanic Agenda and Hispanic League. Dr. Alvarado has university experience serving as Associate Dean for student and external affairs for the Graduate School of Public Affairs and Special Assistant to the Chancellor/Director of Affirmative Action and Graduate School Director at the University of Colorado-Denver. She also served as the Project Director of the Talent Search program for the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation in Boston, MA.
Victoria B. Bjorklund
Victoria Bjorklund is a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP where she heads the Firm’s Exempt Organizations Group. She advises public charities, private foundations, boards, and donors. In 2001, Ms. Bjorklund was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to serve as one of six exempt organization members on the IRS’s Tax Exempt/Government Entities Advisory Committee and served as Chair for 2004-2005. In June 2005, she received the IRS Tax Exempt Division Commissioner’s Award for “ground-breaking service” to the Advisory Committee. Ms. Bjorklund was named a David Rockefeller Fellow for 1997-1998 as a rising civic leader in New York City. From 1989 through 2001, she served as a director, secretary and still serves as pro bono legal counsel for Doctors Without Borders, the emergency medical relief organization that was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. She is also a director of and pro bono counsel for the Robin Hood Foundation. She chaired the ABA Tax Section Committee on Exempt Organizations from 2001 through 2003 and now serves as Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on International Philanthropy. Ms. Bjorklund was honored in May 2002 as ABA Tax Section “Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year” in recognition of her 9/11 work. She also accepted the “Pro Bono Firm of the Year” award from the NYS Bar Association in recognition of the Firm’s 9/11 work. The Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York City and Lawyers Alliance of New York, Inc. honored Ms. Bjorklund for her outstanding volunteer service in responding to the legal needs arising from September 11. In 2003, she received the Commissioner’s Award, the highest honor the Commissioner of Internal Revenue can bestow, for her “timely, creative and nimble response to 9/11’s unprecedented legal challenges.” In 2005, she received the Assistant Commissioner’s Award for her contributions to the IRS Advisory Committee. In 2006, Ms. Bjorklund was appointed to the Board of Trustees, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Ms. Bjorklund speaks and writes frequently on exempt-organization subjects. Every year since 1989 she has spoken at the ALI-ABA Charitable Giving Program on “Choosing Among Private Foundations, Supporting Organizations, and Donor-Advised Funds,” a topic she also addresses at the annual Georgetown Conference. She is the co-author with Jim Fishman and Dan Kurtz of New York Nonprofit Law and Practice (LexisNexis, 2d Ed. 2007). She earned her J.D. at Columbia University School of Law, a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale University, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Princeton University, where she graduated in three years and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Ms. Bjorklund is a former member of the Firm’s Pro Bono Committee and in 2006, she was appointed co-chair of the Diversity Committee.
Eric Carriker
Eric Carriker has been an assistant attorney general in the Non-Profit Organizations/Public Charities Division of the Massachusetts office of the Attorney General since 1983. He has conducted a wide variety of litigation matters, including civil lawsuits involving deceptive fund-raising practices, insider misconduct, and misapplication of charitable funds, as well as two criminal prosecutions for embezzlement and other misconduct. He also handled the seminal litigation defining standards for determining which non-profit corporations are charities subject to regulation in Attorney General v. Weymouth Agricultural and Industrial Society, 400 Mass. 475 (1987). He is currently president-elect of the National Association of State Charities Officials, and will begin serving as its president starting in October. A graduate of Harvard College and Boston University Law School, Mr. Carriker previously held government legal positions as a civil rights attorney at the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, as General Counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, and as an enforcement attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency. Since 1988 he has been an adjunct professor at New England School of Law, teaching clinical students placed at the Massachusetts Attorney Generals office.
Julie L. Floch
Julie Floch, CPA is Eisner’s Director of Not-For-Profit Services and is the partner responsible for coordinating the planning and administration of engagements in the firm’s not-for-profit practice. She is a member of the AICPA and its Not-for-Profit Organizations Expert Panel and a member of the NYSSCPA and its Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee (which she formerly chaired) and Exempt Organizations Committee. In addition, she is the technical reviewer for the AICPA’s annual not-for-profit accounting video course update, and a frequent moderator and panelist for a variety of its courses. Julie has recently rotated off a three year appointment by the IRS to its Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Governmental Entities. She is on the board of the Council of Community Services of New York State, was a founding member of Governance Matters, and has served on and chaired the finance and audit committees of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. She is an adjunct professor of auditing at Baruch College/CUNY; and has taught not-for-profit management at the New School University.
Linda Manley
Legal Director Linda Manley oversees Lawyers Alliance’s client representation services and manages the in-house attorney staff. Ms. Manley has significant experience in the areas of childcare, elder services, mergers and strategic alliances, corporate restructuring, nonprofit governance and coping with financial distress. She also initiated Lawyers Alliance's initiative Program Preservation that helps nonprofits cope with the legal impact of the economic downturn at a time of increased demand for their services. From 1997-2006, Ms. Manley was a staff attorney and senior staff attorney at Lawyers Alliance. Previously, she was an associate at the law firms of Jones Day and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, and she served as law clerk to Hon. Loretta A. Preska in the Southern District of New York. She received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1991 and B.A. magna cum laude from State University of New York at Albany in 1988. Professional Activities: Board of Trustees, Grand Concourse Academy Charter School; and Low Income Investment Fund Child Care Seed Fund Advisory Group.
Mark A. Pacella
Mr. Pacella received his B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in April of 1981, and his J.D. from the Antioch School of Law in May of 1984. He maintained a general law practice for three years before joining the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General in November of 1987 as a staff attorney within its Charitable Trusts and Organizations Section. He has served as the chief of that section, which performs the Attorney General’s supervisory role over property committed to charitable purposes, since September of 1999. Mr. Pacella is a Past-President of the National Association of State Charity Officials (“NASCO,” an affiliate of the National Association of Attorneys General), and has served on several NASCO committees. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Charitable Organizations and Government Lawyers Committees, and an honorably discharged veteran of the United States Navy after a four year active duty enlistment in July of 1977.
