Current ACLU of Massachusetts members who have paid their dues within the past 15 months are eligible to vote for the organization’s Board of Directors.
Rules and Guidelines
To vote in the 2023 election for ACLU of Massachusetts Board of Directors, please access our digital ballot.
Select up to 11 candidates for election to the ACLU of Massachusetts Board of Directors. Each elected representative will serve a three-year term, ending in 2026.
The deadline for casting ballots is June 16, 2023.
If you have questions about voting in the board election or the Annual Meeting, please contact the ACLU of Massachusetts Board Administrator at sspencer@aclum.org.
Notice to all Class A Members: the ACLU of Massachusetts will have its Annual Members’ Meeting on Monday, June 12th 2023 at 5pm via Zoom.
Candidates' Statements
The Nominating Committee offers the following slate for election to a three-year term on the ACLU of Massachusetts Board of Directors.
- Kendra Albert
- Emily Fish
- Nicki Nichols Gamble
- Angela Gomes
- Stephen Hall
- Thomas Hilbink
- Norma Shapiro
- Charlotte Streat
- Bob Thomas
- Charu Verma
- David Zimmer
Kendra Albert (2nd term)
Clinical Instructor, Cyberlaw Clinic, Harvard Law School
Kendra is a public interest technology lawyer with a special interest in computer security law and freedom of expression. They serve as a clinical instructor at the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School, where they teach students to practice law by working with pro bono clients. Kendra is also the founder and director of the Initiative for a Representative First Amendment.
In addition to serving on the board of the ACLU of Massachusetts, they also serve on the board of the Tor Project, and provide support as a legal advisor for Hacking // Hustling. In their free time, Kendra enjoys giving away other people’s money, playing video games, and making people in power uncomfortable.
Emily Fish (2nd term)
Assistant Director, ROCA Inc.
Emily Fish is a criminal justice reform advocate and a direct-service provider for the highest risk youth in Greater Boston’s most marginalized communities. Currently, she is an Assistant Director at Roca Inc., an organization focused on disrupting cycles of incarceration and poverty.
Emily helped open and now runs Roca’s Lynn site, which serves the North Shore, where she oversees all youth work, stage-based programming, subsidized employment, and behavioral health services there. In 2018, she held Massachusetts’ first restorative justice process inside a jail between incarcerated people and correctional officers.
Emily has also worked for organizations focused on housing insecurity, immigrant rights, homeless youth, and behavioral health as well as working as a cook and carpenter where she taught pre-vocational skills to high-risk youth in both fields. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Wesleyan University and graduated from the Tisch College of Civic Life’s Non-Profit Management and Leadership Program at Tufts University. In addition to ACLUM, Emily also serves on the Boards of Directors for the Social Innovation Forum and Public Assistants.
Nicki Nichols Gamble (2nd term)
Retired. Former President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of MA
Following a 25-year career as President/CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, Nicki is now a full-time volunteer. She served on the Board of IPAS for over 20 years including a 2-year period as Board Chair. IPAS is an advocate for promoting safe, legal abortion and liberalizing abortion laws throughout the world, as well as training clinicians to provide women’s reproductive health care in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Nicki continues her two decades of service on the Board of the Center for Reproductive Rights (including 7 years as Chair), an international organization that litigates on behalf of domestic and international plaintiffs on a comprehensive variety of reproductive health care laws and issues. She is also a Senior Associate at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where she have been a guide (docent) for the past 10+ years.
Angela Gomes (2nd term)
Partner, Sullivan & Worcester LLP
Angela is co-leader of Sullivan’s REITs Practice Group. She focuses on corporate finance and securities regulation, in addition to handling general corporate matters and mergers and acquisitions. She advises clients, including public companies, on a broad range of corporate and securities matters, including securities law compliance, disclosure and periodic reporting, and corporate governance matters. Angela also advises a number of nonprofit organizations on general corporate law matters, as well as state and federal tax-exempt status.
In 2017, Angela was named as one of Massachusetts Lawyers’ Weekly’s Top Women of Law, and in 2015 she also was named as one of Ten Outstanding Young Leaders by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Angela served as president of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association from April 2015 to April 2016. She also serves on the board of directors of a number of nonprofit organizations.
Stephen Hall (2nd term)
Partner, Orrick
At Orrick, Stephen combines his financial and legal knowledge with his innate ability to quickly assess complex business transactions to develop reasoned legal strategies that advance his clients' business objectives and keeps his clients focused on their ultimate goal.
Throughout his legal career, Stephen has been actively involved in and served as a leader in the various bar associations. Most notably, he is currently serving as President-Elect of the Boston Bar Foundation and has previously served as President of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, a state-wide bar association focused on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal industry.
In addition, Stephen devotes his time to pro bono affairs, including assisting the Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) and the Innocence Project with criminal appeals involving factual innocence.
Thomas Hilbink (1st term)
Principal at Levain Consulting
Tom Hilbink has spent much of his adult life engaged with civil liberties and the ACLU. He began interning in the national office during college and served as Assistant to President Nadine Strossen for two years before going to graduate and law school. There he studied the role of lawyers in social movements in 1960s America.
He clerked for Judge Stephanie Seymour of the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, then spent four years teaching history and sociology of law at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. While at UMass, Tom helped organize the ACLU student chapter and did advocacy work around Guantanamo.
For the past 15 years, Tom has worked at the Open Society Foundations where he supported work on judicial nominations, constitutional advocacy, state court reform, and Trans inclusion in the LGBTQ movement. Most recently he led OSF’s global team dedicated to promoting effective and ethical grantmaking for social justice. He now runs Levain Consulting to support efforts to build and sustain effective and equitable grant making in a variety of private foundations, public charities, and LLCs.
He lives with his family in Northampton, MA.
Norma Shapiro (1st term)
Retired. Former Legislative Director, ACLU of MA
Norma Shapiro currently serves on the Boards of Directors or the Foundation Board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and is a former member of the Executive Board. She retired in 2009 after 20 years as a legislative lobbyist for ACLUM. She worked on a range of constitutional rights issues including prevention of the death penalty, ensuring same-gender marriage, support for improved public education—curriculum, safety, and funding for schools, issues of constitutional rights issues in criminal justice and prisons, women’s and disability rights, racial justice, and First Amendment concerns.
She also represented the ACLUM and is a past chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Choice, which works to defend reproductive freedom. She continues to work on these and other issues when she can, is a member of the Development Committee.
Norma also serves on the board and executive committee of Citizens for Public Schools, and on the leadership committee of J Street. She got her start in Massachusetts public policy work with the League of Women Voters.
Charlotte Streat (1st term)
Vice President and Diversity Equity & Inclusion Business Advisor, Global Commercial Insurance
As VP, DEI Business Advisor –Global Commercial Insurance, Charlotte serves as the liaison between the Global DEI Office and the Business Leader & The Talent Organization by consulting on key initiatives and solving for business-specific needs in alignment with enterprise strategies and priorities. She supports the business unit’s efforts in the global DEI space, establishes market plans with business leaders, DEI office and talent teams, helps establish and evolve the DEI work and provides guidance to strengthen the DEI capabilities as an organization.
Prior to becoming VP, DEI Business Advisor Charlotte was a Sr. Talent Advisor and was responsible for being a strategic thought partner within the Liberty Mutual Organization. Prior to joining Liberty Mutual, Charlotte was the CEO of the Non-Profit organization Building Impact after spending 22 years with Bank of America in various senior and executive roles.
Charlotte holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and is a graduate from the Simmons School of Management MBA program.
Bob Thomas (1st term)
Co-Managing Partner, Whistleblower Law Collaborative, LLC
Bob Thomas is a lawyer who represents whistleblowers. He is the Co-Founder and Managing Member of the Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC here in Boston. The Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC seek to hold accountable companies and individuals who defraud the government, or who engage in securities fraud. Bob has also taught Health Care Fraud and Abuse and Whistleblower Law and Practice at BU Law School.
Charu Verma (1st term)
Staff Attorney, Committee for Public Counsel Services
David Zimmer (2nd term)
Partner, Goodwin Procter
David is a partner in Goodwin’s Litigation Department, and a member of its Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation practice. David focuses on U.S. Supreme Court and appellate matters, complex commercial litigation, and has litigation experience in a wide range of areas, with a particular focus on intellectual property, administrative law, and consumer financial services.
Prior to joining Goodwin, David clerked for Justice Elena Kagan of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In addition to his work at Goodwin, David serves as a Lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Federal Courts Clinic and teaches the Federal Courts Clinical Seminar. David also serves on the Board of Directors for the Lawyers for Civil Rights.