Bio
Jean Berman
Jean Berman, ISLP Executive Director from September 2001-March 2012, remains on staff as Senior Executive Advisor. Prior to joining ISLP, Ms. Berman was a Senior Staff Attorney at Lawyers Alliance for New York, where for nearly 18 years she represented nonprofit organizations serving low-income communities, specializing in issues related to nonprofit organizations and the development of affordable housing. Earlier in her legal career, Ms. Berman was associated with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Berle, Butzel, Kass & Case, a New York law firm specializing in environmental law. A graduate of Harvard University and the New York University School of Law, Ms. Berman spent the year 1970-71 in Yugoslavia (Belgrade and Novi Sad) on a Fulbright Scholarship, and spent a year in Switzerland and a year in Russia as a child and teenager.
Sarah Chiles
Sarah Chiles is the Vice President of the Thomas Reuters Foundation.
Timothy L. Dickinson
Timothy L. Dickinson is a partner in the Washington D.C. office of Paul Hastings with over 30 years experience in the field of anti-corruption law. Mr. Dickinson’s practice encompasses a number of areas, including all aspects of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.S. export laws, economic sanctions, ITAR regulations (including enforcement actions), and political risk insurance.
Mr. Dickinson works closely with a wide range of industries on FCPA matters, including establishment of compliance programs, due diligence in acquisitions, special investigations and defense before regulators in the U.S. as well as abroad, including the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office. In 2005, he was appointed Independent Expert by Monsanto as part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the Department of Justice and he is currently serving as Independent Monitor in conjunction with a case settled in 2010. Mr. Dickinson was also selected by the World Bank to assist with the development of their Voluntary Disclosure Program, and participated with Bank staff in evaluating and recommending improvements to a VDP participant's compliance program. Chambers USA 2009, 2010 and 2011 have recognized him among the very few attorneys ranked as top-tier FCPA experts; he was also named by Ethisphere at the top of their FCPA 2009 list of Attorneys Who Matter.
Mr. Dickinson also represents political risk insurance entities dealing with coverage issues, arbitration of disputes, and recovery activities. He has worked on major infrastructure projects in the Middle East and Asia and has represented foreign governments in matters involving public international law; including treaty rights, expropriation, and sovereign immunity.
Mr. Dickinson was an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1983 to 1993. He is currently a Professor from Practice at The University of Michigan Law School where he teaches Transnational Law and International Commercial Transactions, and is a founding faculty member of the International Transactions Clinic, which gives students practical experience in international law. He served as the chair of the ABA Section of International Law and Practice in 1997-1998, has served on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Law Institute, where he also serves as Director of the ILI's course on government integrity and anti-corruption initiatives. Mr. Dickinson is chairman of the ABA's International Legal Resource Center, which provides global legal assistance in conjunction with the United Nations Development Programme. He is currently serving as Co-Chair of the International Bar Association's Anti-Corruption Committee.
Mr. Dickinson graduated from The University of Michigan law school in 1979 after completing his B.A. in 1975. He also studied at The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands and L'Université d'Aix-Marseille in France and spent a brief period as an extern in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. Following law school, he earned his LL.M. as a Jervey Fellow at Columbia University. After finishing his LL.M. degree, Mr. Dickinson worked in the Legal Service of the Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Dickinson then returned to Washington, D.C., where he entered private practice.
Alison Gardy
Alison Gardy has served as the Director of International Relations at 92nd Street Y since 2001. Her responsibilities include the Ford Motor Company International Fellowship of 92nd Street Y, which brings proven international community leaders from all over the world to 92Y for intensive management and leadership training; 92Y’s International Way, a block-long display of international cultural booths that makes 92Y's annual StreetFest unique among street festivals in New York City; and the 92Y Diplomatic Outreach Program, which has engaged diplomats from over 70 countries through educational forums, creative program collaborations, off-the-record dialogues and other international initiatives. Throughout her work, Alison creates and cultivates esteemed relationships with individuals and organizations on behalf of the entire institution. International Relations also informs the world of 92Y programs by conducting regular outreach to more than 800 members of the diplomatic communities in New York City and Washington, D.C., including ambassadors, consuls general and their staff, and to thousands of global contacts, such as grassroots non-profits, foundations and organizations.
Alison served on the Fulbright Association Board of Directors (2000-2006, Membership Chair, 2003-2006), was President of the Greater New York Chapter of the Fulbright Association (2000-2002) and founded the Fulbright Youth Conference in 2001, which brought together hundreds of New York City high school students for training in peaceful solutions to conflict. As a board member of the New Jersey Scholars Program, of which she is also a graduate, Alison built up and engaged the alumni community (1996-2000). Alison taught writing at New York University and English at The Bilingual Company, a Japanese language school in New York. In her 15 years as a journalist, she has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NACLA Report on the Americas, National Geographic Traveler, Associated Press and Texas Observer, among other US and international print and Internet publications. Alison's penchant for start-up experiments led her to help found a web content provider, a Brazilian culture magazine and several multicultural newsletters.
Alison received a BA in Comparative Literature in Spanish and Russian from Yale University and a MFA in Literary Nonfiction from Columbia University School of the Arts. She lived in Mexico for several years on a Fulbright Fellowship to research social change in Mexico and has traveled extensively in Latin America. Alison speaks Spanish fluently, is conversant in Portuguese, French, and Russian, and knows some Hebrew. She would love to bicycle around the world with her family one day.
Lusine Hovhannisian
Lusine Hovhannisian is a program director in PILnet's New York office. She has provided technical assistance and advice for the creation and development of clinical legal education programs in a variety of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Balkans and former Soviet republics. She has been a trainer at numerous workshops for clinical instructors and NGO lawyers and has managed projects designed to promote long-term sustainable reform of higher legal education in Moldova, Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. She also leads PILnet's International Fellows program.
Hovhannisian received her legal training in her native Armenia, followed by an LL.M. from Central European University. In 1999, she established the first clinical legal education program at Yerevan State University, where she also taught human rights law and legal ethics. She has been a visiting lecturer at the American University of Armenia and was a visiting research fellow at Central European University from 2005-2006. She is fluent in Armenian, Russian, and English, and has been with PILnet since 2003.
Elizabeth Millard
Elizabeth Millard is the Acting Director of the Vance Center for International Justice.
Aileen Pisciotta
Aileen Pisciotta is a business lawyer with over 25 years experience as a major law firm partner, corporate general counsel and senior government manager.
Her clients include telecom, IT, e-commerce, internet, web design, software, alternative energy, management consulting, finance, and government contracting companies. She advises on a full range of corporate and commercial matters including company formation, restructuring, governance, employment; mergers, acquisitions, teaming and joint ventures; domestic and international commercial agreements for supply, manufacturing, sale, service and distribution; internet law; federal telecom regulation; and Small Business Administration certifications and regulations.
Prior to joining Executive Counsel in 2007, Aileen was Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Trans-World Telecom Caribbean, a privately held, U.S.-owned cellular telecom company with interests in several Caribbean countries. She was responsible for all legal and governmental affairs including international transactions, litigation, and the negotiation and closing of the multimillion dollar sale of company’s operating subsidiaries. Before joining TWT, Aileen was a partner in the in Washington, D.C. office of New York-based Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, where she built a substantial practice advising a variety of broadband, wireless, satellite, media and e-commerce enterprises on domestic and international transactional and regulatory matters including complex multinational projects. From 1994-96, Aileen served as Chief of the Planning and Negotiations Division of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) International Bureau, supervising 35 lawyers, economists and engineers on international spectrum negotiations, particularly with Canada and Mexico, and studies of global telecom developments. Previously, Aileen practiced telecommunications regulatory and transactional law at Latham & Watkins LLP and served as a Public Utility Specialist on the U.S. Department of Justice trial staff working on the Bell System divestiture; Director of Economic Policy in the Office of Telecommunications in the Office of the Governor of the State of Alaska; and Special Assistant to the Chief of the FCC Common Carrier Bureau.
Madeleine Schachter
Madeleine Schachter, a partner based in the New York office, is the Firm's Global Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. She works exclusively on global pro bono and community service, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability matters, including in an active pro bono practice and by leading the Firm's pro bono teaming practice. Ms. Schachter is Co-Chair of the International Pro Bono Committee of the ABA's Section of International Law. She currently holds a faculty position at Weill Cornell Medical College and previously was an Adjunct Professor at the Fordham University School of Law.
Madeleine Schachter works exclusively on CSR matters. In addition to her work on global diversity and sustainability strategies, she has an active pro bono practice with an emphasis on international humanitarian and human rights, disaster response, and global health, and she directs the Firm's pro bono teaming practice in which Firm lawyers collaborate with in-house counsel on pro bono representations. Prior to joining Baker & McKenzie, Ms. Schachter was in-house counsel for more than twenty years, including at Time Warner, where she chaired the company's pro bono program. She previously chaired the Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Coordinators and the New York City Bar Association's Committee on Pro Bono and Legal Services. Ms. Schachter is the author of three books, Law of Internet Speech, Informational and Decisional Privacy, and The Law Professor's Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law, and several articles in law and medical journals, including on topics relating to pro bono service.
Christina Storm
Christina Storm is Executive Director & Founder of Lawyers Without Borders.
