Board

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David F. Broderick

Retired Partner, McCarter & English, Newark 

David Broderick has been on the board of NJA since its inception and served as its chairman from 2006 to 2023.

Until his retirement, David was a partner at one of New Jersey’s biggest and most prestigious firms, where he practiced corporate and securities law and was particularly skilled in venture capital and private equity investment transactions. David was co-head of McCarter’s Small Business Investment Company practice, where his record of success included helping a client obtain one of the first participating securities licenses issued by the Small Business Administration, in 1993.

In addition to his board leadership role with NJA, David was Chairman of the First Occupational Center of New Jersey, a now defunct nonprofit based in Orange. It was the state’s oldest and largest vocational training and job placement agency, serving developmentally disabled, elderly and economically disadvantaged New Jersey residents and their families. He is also a former trustee of the Center for Hospice Care.

He teaches a course in Business Planning as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School and has lectured widely on venture capital and related topics and served as a judge at the annual New Jersey Venture Fair since 1999.

David has repeatedly been recognized as one of the Chambers USA “Leaders in their Field” and listed in Best Lawyers in America and he was chosen as a New Jersey Super Lawyer for 2006.

He is a Rutgers University graduate and obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School..

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Linda Fisher

Professor, Seton Hall Law School, Newark

Linda E. Fisher’s professional and academic interests link theory and practice. She has taught courses in Land Finance, Professional Responsibility, Gender and the Law and other subjects and her academic work concentrates on the areas of foreclosure and mortgage fraud, and, more broadly, consumer fraud.

Linda is a past Director of Seton Hall’s Center for Social Justice, a pro bono legal clinic serving indigent clients, and she continues to do clinical work, defending borrowers and pursuing a variety of consumer and civil rights claims against lenders and various scammers. She also integrates broader advocacy efforts into her practice and engages in legislative and policy advocacy on behalf of consumer and civil rights groups. She testified before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing on Robo-signing, Chain of Title and Loss Mitigation Issues and presented at a Federal Trade Commission conference on mortgage fraud.

She has published in the areas of subprime lending and mortgage fraud, civil rights, and public interest litigation, as well as on issues pertaining to the recent financial crisis. Linda is currently a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Special Committee on the Residential Foreclosure Process, and is Co-Chair of the Legislative Solutions Subcommittee.

Linda has been honored as a Network Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, researching financial institution dysfunction in negotiating mortgage modifications, and as a Bellow Scholar by the American Association of Law Schools, for her research project studying the relationship between vacant urban properties and banks’ abandonment of foreclosures. She has been a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Minority Concerns, and is frequently consulted by the media on related issues. Other past activities include chairing AARP-NJ’s Predatory Lending Task Force and membership on the Newark/Essex Foreclosure Task Force.

Before coming to Seton Hall in 1995, Linda was an Assistant Professor at Penn State-Dickinson Law School. Prior to that, she was a constitutional civil rights lawyer in Chicago and taught at Northwestern Law School. She has an LL.M. from Northwestern University, a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Macalester College.

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Tiffanie Fisher

Member, Hoboken City Council

Tiffanie, who lives in Hoboken, has been involved in her community, advocating for good governance and pedestrian safety issues in her neighborhood and in 2011, led an effort opposing a developer who reneged on previously agreed community givebacks.  This led to her co-founding the group Hoboken Residents for a Public Waterfront which continues to advocate for the preservation and maintenance of Hoboken’s waterfront as public, open space.  She was appointed to the Zoning Board of Adjustment in 2013 where she leveraged her long-term residence and her professional background to ensure that Hoboken’s neighborhoods were not unfairly impacted by the significant development pressure that the city faced.  This combined experience and her growing interest in public service led her to run for office in 2015.  She is now in her second term representing the 2d Ward on the Hoboken City Council.  

As a Councilwoman, Tiffanie has focused on: bringing a holistic and strategic approach to community planning that encompasses all aspects of safety, economic development and quality of life; for the City to have the right tools to assess and agree to all economic arrangements so the benefits to Hoboken far outweigh the costs; and finding ways to protect Hoboken’s economically and culturally diverse population that is the very fabric of its community. At the core of all of her efforts, is her passion to ensure that all voices are heard, to fight for transparency, good governance and honest elections, and to engage the public on all issues that are important to them. She writes a regular newsletter that reaches thousands of people on important issues that impact Hoboken.  

Tiffanie, who joined the NJ Appleseed board in 2022, became acquainted with us in the course of litigation in which we represented the Fund for a Better Waterfront (FBW) in supporting Hoboken’s efforts to enforce its anti-flooding safety ordinances to prevent construction on the Hudson River waterfront. Tiffanie was the president of the Hudson Tea Buildings Condominium association, which intervened, along with our client FBW, in the litigation between Hoboken and the developer.

She has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science, moved to Hoboken in July 1994 to work in New York City upon graduating from the University of Minnesota with her M.B.A. in Finance and Strategic Management. 

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Cynthia Hadjiyannis

Attorney, Law Offices of Cynthia Hadjiyannis, Jersey City 

Cynthia A. Hadjiyannis is a real estate, land use and litigation attorney based in Jersey City who joined the Board in 2022.  After launching her own practice in 2005, Cynthia increasingly began taking on community-based work opposing inappropriate development projects.  These cases can be a steep uphill battle and eventually Cynthia sought support from NJ Appleseed.  Cynthia and Executive Director Renée Steinhagen have teamed up to represent Coalition to Save the Palisades to protect the Palisades from development in North Bergen and have represented the Van Vorst Park Neighborhood Association as appellate co-counsel defending against the automatic approval of an 85-microunit project in downtown Jersey City.  In a pending case involving New Jersey’s warehouse sprawl, Cynthia and Renée are now representing a group of Piscataway residents in a suit to invalidate an ordinance that rezoned a 25-acre forested parcel to allow the construction of two huge warehouses. 

In addition to her efforts with NJ Appleseed, in 2005, Cynthia co-founded the grassroots non-profit Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance, which saved 13-acre Reservoir No. 3 from development. Subsequently, the Alliance has partnered with the City to open the Reservoir to the public and to lay the groundwork that culminated in millions in grants to restore the landmark and transform the greenspace into a public park and nature sanctuary. She remains on the Alliance Board as its President and is actively working with a team of professionals on future plans for the historic site.  As a longtime board member of Friends of the Loew’s, Cynthia has helped to protect and advocate for the Loew’s Jersey Theater, now undergoing a major restoration that will set the stage for its next chapter as a regional arts and entertainment center. 

Before becoming a lawyer, Cynthia pursued art, science and political science in various settings and now finds her community-based land use and civic work to be a satisfying, interdisciplinary combination of all three.  Cynthia earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and her J.D. from Rutgers Law School, following which she clerked for N.J. Superior Court Judge Carmen Messano and later worked at private firms in New Jersey and New York. 

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Fred Jacobs

Executive VP, St. George’s University Medical School, Grenada

Fred M. Jacobs was New Jersey Commissioner of Health from 2004 through 2008 and President of the State Board of Medical Examiners from 1993-1995. His four years as Commissioner were carved out of his 12-year tenure as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at Barnabas Health, from 1996 to 2004 and 2008 to 2012. In 2011, he became Executive VP at St. George’s University in Grenada and Chair of the Department of Medicine.

Among the many honors Fred has received are the UMDNJ Medal for Distinguished Leadership in 2005, and the Peter W. Rodino Citizens Award in 2009. “Dr. Jacobs is an eminent leader, physician, educator, administrator and humanitarian,” said Dr. Paul Hirsch, Chairman of the Excellence in Medicine Foundation.

As Health Commissioner, Fred spearheaded meaningful initiatives which have had an enduring impact on public health. He played a key role in the 2006 enactment of the Smoke Free Air Act, which prohibits smoking in the workplace and indoor public spaces. He also led major statewide initiatives for the management of childhood asthma, diabetes and childhood obesity, as well as efforts to prevent second-hand smoke exposure of children in homes and cars.

Fred received his bachelor’s degree from Colgate University, and his medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine. He completed a pulmonary research fellowship at the University of California and a chief residency in pulmonary disease at Kings County Hospital.  He is board certified in both internal medicine and pulmonary disease. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Legal Medicine. He was President of the American Lung Association of New Jersey, the NJ Thoracic Society and the NJ Chapter of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Decades after becoming a doctor, he obtained a law degree from Rutgers and passed the bar in New Jersey and Florida. He has never practiced law but his involvement with NJA was inspired by a law school class he took with founder Arthur Kinoy.

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Flavio Komuves, Acting Chair

Partner, Weissman & Mintz, Somerset

Formerly with the Zazzali firm in Newark, where he represented individuals and entities in labor, employment, administrative, constitutional and election law matters, Flavio Komuves joined Weissman & Mintz in early 2019. The Weissman firm, which  describes itself as “committed to bettering the lives of working people through collective bargaining, legal challenges and social action,” represents unions, employees and social justice organizations.

A good part of Flavio’s legal career has been devoted to public service. As a Deputy Public Advocate, he led the State’s voting rights program, and he has gone to court to protect voting rights both in his private practice and as senior counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. He played a key role in reforming the Newark Police Department, through his work on a petition filed by the ACLU-NJ with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010, which ultimately led to a 2016 consent decree. The decree requires new policies and training to end unconstitutional practices, use of body and car cameras, community oversight and strengthened Internal Affairs procedures, among other measures. Flavio has also gone to court to vindicate the right of public access to court records.

A member of the NJ Appleseed board since 2011, he became Acting Board Chair in 2023. He also volunteers as Chair of the Election Law Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association, and was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to the Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Activities.

Flavio is a graduate of Rutgers University and Seton Hall University School of Law.

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Sandra D. Lovell

Partner, McElroy Deutsch, Morristown

Sandra D. Lovell is a partner with McElroy Deutsch in Morristown, where her practice is focused on civil defense litigation.

Law is her second career. Sandra, who grew up in Queens, graduated from New York University with a degree in Journalism and worked as a reporter at several newspapers, beginning with The Hudson Dispatch and ending at The Star-Ledger. After deciding to switch to law, she attended Seton Hall University Law School at night while employed during the day, first as Volunteer Director at the Community Food Bank of New Jersey; then as a Staff Writer for the New Jersey Law Journal and, finally, as a paralegal at McElroy, Deutsch.

Following graduation from Seton Hall, she clerked for Union County Superior Court Judge Ross Anzaldi before returning as an Associate to McElroy, where she worked her way up to Of Counsel, then Partner.

Sandra, one of the board’s newest members, joined in 2021, motivated by the desire to use her legal skills and resources to help bring about beneficial societal change and support the work of others who are advocating for more equitable public policies.

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Christopher Placitella

Partner, Cohen, Placitella & Roth, Red Bank 

Christopher Placitella’s legal career, like his support for NJA, has been shaped by his notion of the role of the lawyer in our society. In his view, the lawyer stands between those who abuse power– be it government, corporate or judicial power—and the individuals at the receiving end of that abuse, a role exemplified by lawyers throughout history, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow and Robert Kennedy.

Chris has devoted his career to representing individuals injured by defective products and drugs, toxic substances, and environmental damage and helping obtain justice for them and their families. With a nationwide reputation as a mass tort lawyer, he is best known for his advocacy on behalf of asbestos plaintiffs and helped establish a national asbestos litigation group dedicated to representing individuals suffering from asbestos-related diseases.

He has advised labor unions and consumer organizations across the country on occupational safety and health related issues, and educated the public on injuries caused by asbestos, defective drugs, and other toxic substances. He is Editor in Chief of the New Jersey Mass Tort & Class Action Treatise.

Chris has received local, regional, and national recognition. For example, he has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the Best Lawyers in America and designated a New Jersey Super Lawyer every year since 2005. Among other honors, he received the National Trial Lawyers Association’s Clarence Darrow Award and was named a member of the “Roundtable: America’s 100 Most Influential Trial Lawyers.”

He serves as counsel to Consumers for Civil Justice and volunteers with other consumer advocacy groups. He is also a founder of the Veterans Transition Initiative and is a trustee of Holidays for the Homeless and Underprivileged.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, he spearheaded an effort to provide modular homes and legal help to residents of Union Beach, NJ, which was devastated by the storm. Similarly, as part of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, he helped organize national pro bono effort to provide free legal assistance for families who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Chris holds a B.S. from Fordham University and a J.D. from Syracuse University Law School.

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As Assistant Township Attorney for the Township of Wayne, Lisa Scorsolini provides legal counsel to the Mayor, Council and Administration, drafts ordinances and resolutions, reviews contracts, and ensures compliance with the various state laws that govern New Jersey municipalities, such as the Open Public Records Act, Open Public Meetings Act, Local Public Contracts Law, Faulkner Act, and the Municipal Land Use Law.

Prior to her job with Wayne, Lisa was an Assistant Prosecutor/Deputy Attorney General for the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, where she worked in the Domestic Violence and Trial Divisions, and appeared regularly before the Criminal and Family Divisions of the Superior Court of New Jersey, as well as the Appellate Division.

Before becoming a lawyer, Lisa enjoyed a career in international development, managing multi-faceted USAID and Department of State-funded projects in business support and NGO development. She worked for six years overseas in Armenia and Georgia for International Executive Service Corps and Counterpart International, respectively, following her service as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Armenia, 1997-99). She joined the Peace Corps after working for the Port Authority of NY & NJ as an International Marketing Manager with the World Trade Institute at the World Trade Center.

Lisa became involved with NJ Appleseed through her work with PLANewark, which began in 2012. She currently serves as PLANewark’s Treasurer, a position she also holds on her condominium association board. In addition, she chairs the Project Support Committee for the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of New Jersey and sits on the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association NYC Chapter Planning Committee.

Lisa is a graduate of Seton Hall University Law School where she served as Managing Editor of the Seton Hall Circuit Review. She received her BA degree from Johns Hopkins University, double-majoring in International Studies and Hispanic and Italian Studies. She speaks Armenian and Italian, as well as English.

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Rayman Solomon

University Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, Rutgers University

Rayman Solomon was Dean of Rutgers University Law School in Camden from 1998 to 2014, when he became its first Provost and subsequently a Law Professor and Dean Emeritus in the newly merged (with Rutgers-Newark) Rutgers Law School.

During his 16 years as Dean, Ray hired over one-third of the current faculty, significantly expanded clinical and pro bono programs, redesigned the curriculum and oversaw an addition to and renovation of the original law school building. His innovations included creating classes that combined clinical and writing experiences and doctrinal and trial advocacy or transactional skills. His deanship saw the strengthening of the student experience, through establishment of two additional journals and an increased emphasis on alumni activity led to the successful completion of two capital campaigns and the involvement of more alumni in the life of the school.

Ray’s areas of research are the history of the American legal profession, the history of judicial ethics, and federal court history. He is co-editor of two books: In the Interest of Children: Advocacy, Law Reform and Public Policy and Lawyers’ Ideals and Lawyers’ Practices: Professionalism and The Transformation of the American Legal Profession, and he has published several articles. He teaches courses in American Legal History and Trusts and Estates.

Before coming to Rutgers-Camden, Ray was an Associate Dean at Northwestern University School of Law and Associate Director and a Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where he was also editor of the Foundation’s Research Journal. In addition, he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago, where he taught legal research and writing.

In addition to his NJ Appleseed board role, Ray is on the Advisory Board of the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia. A native Arkansan,  Ray is a past chair of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, based in Jackson, Mississippi.

He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a J.D. and Ph.D. in American Legal History from the University of Chicago. He served as Director of the Seventh Circuit History Project and published A History of the United States Court of Appeals, 1891-1941 (Government Printing Office, 1981).

Joshua Spielberg

Retired Chief Counsel, LSNJ Health Care Access Project

Josh has devoted his legal career to helping individuals and using law as an instrument to achieve social change. From 2006 to 2021, he served as Chief Counsel for the Health Care Access Project of Legal Services of NJ.  He both represented individual low-income clients and engaged in systemic advocacy for this population.  He served on a number of health care commissions, steering committees, and work groups, including as chairperson of the CMS-NJ Medicaid Advocates. In this role, he helped persuade policymakers to make NJ one of only a very few states with Republican governors to adopt the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion at its inception in 2014.

From 1984 to 2006, Josh was in private practice, serving as a partner at two NJ law firms.  He represented individuals who were injured by toxic substances (primarily asbestos) and medical malpractice.  He handled a number of jury trials, as well as lecturing widely on both topics and serving briefly as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School.

Josh has won a number of groundbreaking appellate cases, including In re U.S. Healthcare, 193 F.3d 151 (3^rd Cir. 1999) (ERISA does not preempt claims against HMOs for policies causing medical malpractice); Olivo v. Exxon Mobil, 186 N.J. 394 ((2006) (landowners’ duty of care extends to spouses of workers exposed to toxic substances on their premises); and D.C. v. Div. of Med. Services & Health Servs., 249 N.J. 20 (2021) (long-standing NJ Medicaid agency regulation basing individual’s eligibility on income limit for family size of one, regardless of actual family size, violates NJ Medicaid statute).

Josh is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1981) and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College (1977).  Josh began his legal career (after a federal judicial clerkship) pursuing justice for low-income clients as a Reginald Heber Smith fellow at Community Legal Aid Society of Delaware, where he started their Public Benefits Unit.

Although Josh retired from the active practice of law at the end of 2021, he continues with various volunteer activities, including handling an appellate case challenging New Jersey’s Medicaid overpayment procedures, and serving on the steering committee of Alumni for Oberlin Values.

Staff

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Renée Steinhagen

Executive Director, New Jersey Appleseed 

Renée Steinhagen has been executive director of New Jersey Appleseed since the mid-1990s, when she helped Arthur Kinoy, the famed civil rights attorney, in founding the organization. Under her leadership, NJA has made a difference in a variety of areas such as protecting the environment, strengthening voting rights, defeating privatization of public infrastructure, expanding access to health care, standing up for the rights of those who live in common ownership associations, and blocking land use practices that are unsustainable and harmful to the community, among others.

In doing so, she has partnered with the ACLU-NJ, NAACP-NJ, NJ Citizen Action, Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic, the NJ Sierra Club and Pinelands Preservation Alliance and other environmental and community groups. Since 2009, Renée has represented NJA on the leadership team of the New Jersey for Healthcare Coalition, which is focused on issues arising from implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. She played a similar role with the Help America Vote Act, chairing a 30-member plus coalition formed to aid implementation of that 2002 law. She also currently serves on the Board of the Greater Newark Health Care Coalition, which has established a Medicaid Accountable Care Organization or ACO in downtown Newark, and was a founding member of the Campaign to Protect Community Healthcare, which focused for a period of four years on protecting the public during hospital closings or sales. PLANewark, which advocates for responsible development in NJA’s home city, grew out of Renée’s efforts to assist a group of Newark residents in opposing the expansion of surface parking lots in the City and they continue to work closely together.

Renée’s advocacy has been recognized repeatedly over the years. Among other honors, she has received the 2016 Riparian Award for her efforts on behalf of Hoboken’s Fund for a Better Waterfront, the Evanoff-Schucter award for Organizing, presented by NJ Citizen Action, and the Mary Philbrook Public Interest Law Award, bestowed by Rutgers Law School in Camden.

She has authored or co-authored a number of publications for NJA, including Surprise Medical Bills: What they are and how to stop them,” The Database Dilemma: Has New Jersey met best practices of implementing the Statewide Voter Registration System?” and Where Do Our Children Play: The Importance and Design of School Yards.

Before establishing NJA, Renée, a New York City resident, practiced labor law there, with Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, and later in New Jersey, with Ball Livingston in Newark. In addition, she spent two years as a Housing Analyst at the Community Service Society, which fights poverty and inequality in New York City. Her long interest in health care issues includes participation in a year-long examination of the health and economic needs of New Jersey’s uninsured as a member of the Department of Banking and Insurance’s Healthcare Coverage Task Force, Committee on the Uninsured, to which she was appointed by the Governor in 2003.

Renée graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a B.A. in Politics and obtained her J.D. at the University of Chicago. She also has an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she studied on a Rockefeller Public Service Fellowship.

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Cheryl Fallick

Director of Growth and Outreach

Cheryl Fallick came to NJ Appleseed with decades of citizen activism, particularly in the area of housing justice and land use. She also has 20 years of conference and conference production experience, and similarly lengthy involvement with nonprofits.

She held positions with the Global Association of Risk Management Professionals, where she produced the association’s annual Convention and other conferences. From the mid-90’s to the mid-00’s, while with another firm, she produced and was responsible for global financial conferences held throughout the U.S. and internationally, in the UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, South Africa, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. Earlier in her career, Cheryl was a Business Representative at the Screen Actors Guild for theatrical/television production.

A rent control advocate who resides in Hoboken, Cheryl is politically active in her local community where she was a member of the Hoboken Rent Leveling Board from 2009 until 2022 and she has been a member and de facto spokesperson for the Hoboken Fair Housing Association (HFHA). She served as Campaign Manager for the HFHA in connection with two successful campaigns to oppose a local ballot initiative that would have weakened rent protections.

Cheryl studied acting at the Circle in the Square NYU affiliate acting program. She holds a B.A. in Labor Studies and a Certificate in Labor Relations from Cornell ILR/National Labor College.

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Mary Pat Gallagher

Communications and Policy Analyst 

Mary Pat Gallagher joined us following 15 years as an award-winning reporter at the New Jersey Law Journal.  There, she covered a broad range of law-related topics with a particular emphasis on government transparency and accountability and the workings of the state and federal court systems.

Her most recent journalistic award came shortly before she left the Law Journal, in 2015, when the New Jersey Press Association recognized her for a series of 2014 articles about the threat to judicial independence presented by the possibility that Governor Chris Christie might not reappoint Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.

Before becoming a journalist, Mary Pat was a litigator at New York’s Townley & Updike and Haight Gardner Poor & Havens, among other firms.  Her practice encompassed employment law, open records law, product liability, intellectual property, bankruptcy and admiralty.  In addition, she worked at Matthew Bender & Co., editing law books on a variety of topics including Copyright Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Administrative Law and Business Associations.

She served on the board of New Jersey Peace Action for almost 10 years and before starting at the Law Journal, was volunteer intake coordinator for the ACLU-NJ.

A native New Yorker who moved to New Jersey in 1994, Mary Pat is a graduate of Cornell University Law School and has an undergraduate degree in English from Princeton University.

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Myles Zhang

Website Design and Administration

Myles designs and maintains NJA’s digital presence.

Born and raised in Newark, Myles’s activism and art reflect on this city’s history and contemporary challenges of land use, historic preservation, and gentrification. His 2019 exhibit organized with NJA examined the history and adaptive reuse of Newark’s old Essex County Jail, a landmarked building from 1837 that incarcerated generations of Newark residents.

Myles graduated from Columbia University and the University of Oxford with a B.A. in art history. He then obtained his M.A. from the University of Cambridge in architecture and urban studies. He is now a Ph.D. student in architecture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His graduate work will examine how government policies like redlining, highway construction, and urban renewal shaped twentieth-century American cities and continue to enforce segregation. More about Myles is found on his personal website.