Boards & Staff & Contributors

Board of Directors

• April Giancola is an attorney at NC Prisoner Legal Services, Inc. in Raleigh, NC where she serves as managing attorney for the post-conviction team.  April has been practicing law for over 10 years with her main focus on indigent defense and civil legal services.  Originally from Centereach, NY, April is married and has a son.  She enjoys hiking, cooking and singing.

• Carrie Basas is a visiting professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Her scholarship focuses on disability stigma in the workplace and criminal justice systems.  Two of her current projects look at health equity issues in prison for women inmates and the sentencing of HIV+ criminal defendants.  Prof. Basas is a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1999 honors graduate of Swarthmore College. She is the recipient of the Paul Hearne Award, a Truman Scholarship, the Eugene Lang Opportunity Scholarship, and the Ethel Louise Armstrong Fellowship. Active in the disability rights community, Prof. Basas serves as a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law, as well as an advisory board member of the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation and the National Association of Law Students with Disabilities.  She just released a book through the American Bar Association Press called Lawyers, Lead On: Lawyers with Disabilities Share Their Insights. She enjoys North Carolina’s fried green tomatoes, farmers markets, open-minded students to teach.

• Daniel “Dan” Hatley is a resident and small business owner in Carrboro, NC, where he maintains a solo-practice law firm. In his free time, Mr. Hatley serves as a board member on several non-profits and community groups. Mr. Hatley is a native North Carolinian, and having grown up in small mill town, he is fully aware of the need for outreach to women and girls in rural NC communities. As an advocate, Mr. Hatley’s writing has been published on topics related to women’s reproductive rights and state sponsored discrimination of homosexuality. His favorite thing about North Carolina is its diversity of people, geography and cuisine.

• Jennifer Willis is an attorney in San Francisco, CA where she specializes in Social Security Disability law.  Jennifer is a long-time progressive political activist whose previous employers include Working Assets/CREDO Mobile and the California League of Conservation Voters.  Originally from Salem, OR, Jennifer is married and has two kittens, Daisy and Darla.  She enjoys gardening, fighting injustice, and spending time with friends and family.

• Jennifer Wyatt is the founder and executive director of R2JNC. She is a social justice attorney in Durham, focusing on education, criminal justice and poverty law. She studied American History at the University of California, Riverside and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law with a concentration in Public Interest Law. She enjoys traveling around North Carolina, especially when accompanied by music, stories and food.

• Joyce Howard earned her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Political Science, as well as her Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her specialization in law school was non-profit organizations and real estate. She has worked as a copy editor and designer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The News and Observer. She is a mother of two children, one who was born prematurely and as a mother, Joyce has navigated the system for children with special needs.

• Kim Manturuk holds a PhD in sociology and is a research associate at the Center for Community Capital, a research institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She has conducted research on the costs and benefits of different short-term credit products and has provided expert testimony to several state legislatures on this topic.  Presently, her research focuses on consumer debt and credit use and the impacts of matched savings accounts.  She is a co-investigator on the Community Advantage Panel Study, a longitudinal survey of low-income families in urban communities. Her work has appeared in Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Forum, Cityscape, Children and Youth Services Review, Social Service Review, and the Journal of Urban Affairs.  She is currently working on a project exploring linkages between household assets, neighborhood conditions, and disability.

• Stephen Dear is a native of Elizabeth City, N.C. and grew up in Potomac, Md. He served as executive director of the N.C. Rural Communities Assistance Project for five years in the 1990s and has been executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty since 1997. Steve has an M.A. in international studies from Claremont Graduate University and a B.A. in political science from the University of Richmond. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he has worked at several social justice and human rights advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. Steve is married with two children. He enjoys the Outer Banks, small rural hamlets across North Carolina, music and comedy venues in the Triangle, and hopes to camp and hike more in the mountains.

• Vanessa Lucas is an attorney with the law firm of Edelstein & Payne in Raleigh, North Carolina where she represents workers in civil matters including employment discrimination, labor and workers’ compensation cases.  She is active with the National Lawyers Guild, where she serves as the Philippines Subcommittee Chair to the International Committee.  Vanessa graduated from the University of San Diego where she received a joint International MBA and JD.  She did her undergraduate work at University of Michigan majoring in Creative Writing and Literature. She enjoys North Carolina’s biking trails and dog parks.

Staff

Jennifer Wyatt, Executive Director

Jennifer founded Roads to Justice in March of 2011. She is an attorney and a mother of two school-aged daughters. Her life has been devoted to advocating for others, but most important to Jennifer, is that people have the tools to advocate for themselves. When she was raising her daughters, especially when they lived in public housing, Jennifer relied on the strength and knowledge of other women. Roads to Justice is part of her effort to pay back some of the help she was given, which allowed her to eventually graduate from law school and move away from a life of poverty. Jennifer appreciates all of the collateral matters involved in poverty, and believes Roads to Justice can deliver a unique perspective, useful information and empower.

Contributors

• DeDreana Freeman is the Program Manager at Partnership Effort for the Advancement of Childrens Health and has Bachelors of Arts in Communications and Economics from Rutgers University. DeDreana works to improve environmental conditions for her community, which is an important aspect of our long-term health. She is an activist in the Golden Belt District of Durham, NC where she lives with her husband and three children.

• Mizka Brick, Graphic Design