CHLP Staff
Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director and founder of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, has been active in HIV legal and policy issues since 1984. Previously, Hanssens was AIDS Project Director at Lambda Legal, where she led Lambda's HIV-related litigation and policy work. She also worked with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, where she created and managed one of the first medical-legal partnerships in the country, with on-site HIV legal services in several hospitals and clinics. While a staff attorney at the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate, Hanssens successfully litigated the state's first cases on involuntary HIV testing, a class action challenge to segregation and miseatment of prisoners with HIV in the NJ state prison system, and the only federal appeals court case recognizing the right of incarcerated women to funded elective abortions. She also has been a visiting clinical professor at Rutgers University Law School-Newark and Director of the law school's Women and AIDS Clinic.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Legal Director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, is a civil rights litigator and advocate focusing on the legal and policy needs of vulnerable and marginalized groups, including people living with HIV, people of color, the LGBT community, and immigrants. His cases have been featured in the New York Times and New York Law Journal, and he contributes writing to the Practical Lawyer and Huffington Post. Espinoza-Madrigal speaks nationally on civil rights issues, and has appeared as a legal commentator on CNN, Univision, and Telemundo. Previously, he worked with Lambda Legal, where he developed an intersectionality initiative on behalf of people who identify across lines of race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, and HIV status. He also litigated civil rights cases as a Fried Frank/MALDEF Public Interest Fellow, including a constitutional challenge to Arizona's immigration law, and a landmark U.S. Supreme Court voting rights case. Espinoza-Madrigal clerked for Judge Clay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Judge Ellis in the U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y. He received a JD from NYU School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, and a BA, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania. The National LGBT Bar Association has recognized him as one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.
Adrian Guzman, Staff Attorney, earned his Juris Doctor with a concentration in Health Law from Boston University School of Law, where he served as Executive Editor of Public Interest Law Journal. He earned his Master of Public Health with a concentration in Sexuality & Health from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. He has worked at Brooklyn Family Defense Project, and interned at a number of New York- and Boston-based HIV/AIDS organizations, including Gay Men's Health Crisis, The HIV Project at South Brooklyn Legal Services, The Health Law Institute at Justice Resource Institute, and HIV Law Project. He served for two years on Boston's Ryan White Treatment & Modernization Act Planning Council. His writing credits include: Adrian Guzman, Making the Grade?: An Analysis of Rights- and Due Process-Based Concerns Related to John School Diversion Programs, 20 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 79 (2010).
Rashida Richardson, Staff Attorney, is also State Advocacy Working Group Chair of the Positive Justice Project. She earned a B.A. with Honors from Wesleyan University in the College of Social Studies and her Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law. During law school, Rashida served as intern for the Honorable Charles R. Breyer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Cowan, DeBeats, Abraham & Sheppard; Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center; and Dyax Corp. Rashida was also selected as a research assistant for Professor Margaret Burnham in Northeastern University's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, where she participated in a landmark Civil Rights action against a county in Mississippi for a kidnapping and murder which took place in 1964. This suit was the first of its kind. Before joining CHLP, Rashida worked at Facebook Inc. and HIP Investor in San Francisco.
Trevoy Ross, Program Associate, is a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. He has extensive information technology expertise, and worked several years as a technical support coordinator at Ford Motor Company. Prior to his relocation to New York City he worked as the field and communications assistant at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. While in Michigan he volunteered with several community-based organizations including Detroit Summer and Critical Moment Magazine. He continued his volunteer activities in New York City at the New York City LGBT Center, Gay Men's Health Crisis and the Center for HIV Law and Policy before joining CHLP's staff.
Consultants and Advisors
Message Agency (formerly Ianncomm), Web Developer, developed and maintains CHLP's current website and content-management system. A media studio based in Philadelphia with signficiant experience working with non-profit, civil rights and arts organizations, their primary services include strategic communications, branding and messaging, web design and development, content development, and graphic design.
Deirdre Reznik, Information Design, provides design and production services for CHLP's web site and publications. Reznik is a freelance consultant and has worked in print and web design and production for educational and non-profit institutions in New York City since 1994. www.deirdrereznik.com.
