Susan Lambiase, associate director

Susan Lambiase has been with Children’s Rights since 1994. In additional to her involvement in overall organizational management, Ms. Lambiase co-directs the legal program. An experienced litigator, Ms. Lambiase has been actively engaged in Children’s Rights’ child welfare reform work through impact litigation, including active monitoring, problem solving, and enforcement in Kansas City, Missouri, and New Mexico (successfully negotiating the end of these two long-standing suits); New York City; Philadelphia; New Jersey; Mississippi; Michigan; and Rhode Island. Ms. Lambiase has over 20 years of experience as a trial attorney, and prior to her joining the staff at Children’s Rights, she handled a range of cases from child physical and sexual abuse and homicide prosecutions as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York, to civil rights, medical malpractice, and products liability actions while in private practice in Philadelphia. She received her B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, cum laude, and received her law degree from Brooklyn Law School.

 

 

Ira Lustbader, associate director

Ira Lustbader, Associate Director, has been with Children’s Rights since 1999. In additional to his involvement in overall organizational management, Mr. Lustbader co-directs the legal program. He has 16 years of civil litigation experience and has been actively involved at all stages of Children’s Rights’ work in Tennessee, Connecticut, Missouri, Georgia, and Oklahoma. Prior to joining Children’s Rights, Mr. Lustbader practiced law at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, LLP, in New York City, concentrating in national plaintiffs’ class action litigation in consumer fraud, securities fraud, and antitrust cases. Before that, he handled matters on the defense side involving products liability and malpractice at the firms of Parker Chapin Flattau & Klimpl LLP, and at Bower & Gardner, both in New York City. From 1998 to 2006, Mr. Lustbader served as a board member of Neighborhood of Youth & Family Services, a large nonprofit family preservation agency in the South Bronx, and is a past chair of the Committee on Public Service and Education at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He received his B.S. from the State University of New York at Albany, magna cum laude, and received his law degree from Boston University School of Law.

 

Joan Siffert, senior director of development

Joan Siffert brings more than 35 years of experience in philanthropic fundraising to her position as senior director of development at Children’s Rights. In the course of her career, she has worked to help fund such organizations as Mount Sinai Medical Center, United Jewish Appeal — Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, NYU Medical Center, and Gilda’s Club Worldwide. Just prior to joining Children’s Rights, she was responsible for development efforts at the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation.

Ms. Siffert’s expertise extends to the full array of fundraising strategies for both annual and capital campaigns. Throughout her career, she has created numerous first-ever programs that resulted in record levels of giving.

Ms. Siffert holds a B.S. from, Mills College of Education.

 

 

Chris Iseli, director of communications

Chris Iseli joined Children’s Rights as director of communications in September 2007. Formerly the director of communications at Goucher College in Baltimore, MD, Mr. Iseli has also written widely as a freelance journalist for Baltimore magazine, Link arts journal, and other publications. He holds a B.A. from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Driver, director of finance

Amy Driver joined Children’s Rights as director of finance and administration in 1998. When her son Edwin was born in November 2000, Ms. Driver left to raise him, and returned three years later as director of finance.

Ms. Driver has many years of nonprofit experience in finance, fundraising, and public affairs. She started her nonprofit career as assistant director of operations for Campaign for Oxford, a start-up organization in New York City to raise funds for Oxford University, UK. She later joined Homes for the Homeless in New York as director of public affairs and development, then moved to California to work as policy aide for health and human services for Santa Clara Supervisor Ron Gonzales. Ms. Driver served as associate director of finance and development at Compass Community Services, a service provider for homeless families in San Francisco, before returning to New York in 1998. Ms. Driver received her M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and her B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

 

Sally Weissman, director of administration

As director of administration, Sally Weissman is responsible for the organization’s support structure. Ms. Weissman directs human resources, facilities management, and office services (including information technology management and systems development), with a focus on integrating those functions with the operations of the organization.

Ms. Weissman has been working in the nonprofit arena as an administrator for more than 15 years. She started her nonprofit career at the Legal Aid Society, Civil Division. She came to Children’s Rights from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, a legal advocacy organization, where she worked with the executive director to establish and guide the organization in its initial years. She graduated from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, with a degree in sociology.