Staff

Jason Solomon is the Director of the National Institute of Workers’ Rights. Before joining the Institute, Jason was Executive Director of the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, where he helped lead a national coalition on access to justice. From 2013–2016, he served as associate dean for academic affairs and chief of staff to the dean at Stanford Law School, where he worked on a range of strategic initiatives. He also taught Employment Law, Statutory Interpretation, and Constitutional Litigation.

Before joining Stanford, he was a tenured professor at William and Mary Law School, where his research focused on the theory and practice of civil justice. He has served as Chief Legal Officer for a public charter school network, and his pro bono clients include habeas petitioners challenging criminal convictions and immigrants seeking relief from deportation. In law school, he represented unemployment claimants, worked at the union-side labor firm Bredhoff and Kaiser as a summer associate, and externed at the National Employment Law Project and Brooklyn Legal Services A.

Earlier in his career, he worked as a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and the Second Circuit in Manhattan, and as an aide at the White House and U.S. Treasury Department, where he worked on economic and health policy. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, and a member of the New York and Massachusetts bars.

Leah A. Hofkin joined the Institute and the National Employment Lawyers Association as Director of Development in 2010 with nearly 15 years of fundraising experience in the San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit community. She was Director of Development for Magic Theatre for five seasons, managed the institutional giving program for the American Conservatory Theater for four, and spent three years at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Ms. Hofkin began her career as a lawyer, working for prominent firms in New York, Washington, DC, and Silicon Valley. She has served on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Art Monastery Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, Keneset HaLev – Community of the Heart, and the San Francisco Children’s Art Center. Ms. Hofkin holds a B.A. with distinction from George Washington University, a J.D. from Columbia University, and a master’s degree from Golden Gate University.

Freedom Gobel (she/her) earned a B.A. in Legal Studies at Northwestern University and recently earned a J.D. at Georgetown Law. While in law school, Freedom interned for various public interest organizations dedicated to the advancement of workers’ and civil rights. She served as a Law Clerk at First Shift Justice Project, supporting low-income pregnant workers and caregivers in their fight for workplace justice. She acted as Legal & Policy Intern at Legal Action Center, fighting against Medicaid and SNAP work reporting requirements, which disproportionately impact folks with HIV/AIDS and substance use disorders. Freedom was a Peggy Browning Fellow at United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and a Law Clerk at Service Employees International Union, Office of the General Counsel, primarily supporting the organizing and public services legal teams. As Senior Symposium Editor for The Georgetown Law Journal, she organized and edited the journal’s biennial symposium, titled The Labor Movement in Civil Rights in the Modern Era. In her final semester of law school, Freedom was a Student Attorney for the Civil Justice Clinic, representing workers in wage & hour cases in D.C. Superior Court and arguing claimants’ unemployment benefits appeals at the D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings. Outside of law school, Freedom co-founded Abolition Advocacy Project (AAP), an organization that seeks to create a network of movement-minded lawyers, students, organizers, and artists in support of the abolitionist movement. Freedom serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Abolition Law & Policy Review, an interdisciplinary abolitionist journal and major project of AAP. She is honored to continue her advocacy as the Paul H. Tobias Fellow for the National Institute for Workers’ Rights.

Karen Maoki joined the staff of the National Employment Lawyers Association in 2000 and now serves as Director of Strategy & Operations for the Institute and NELA. Ms. Maoki came to NELA from organized labor, having worked with UNITE HERE Local 2850 as an organizer intern and, later, their bookkeeper. In her free time, she has volunteered with Berkeley Needle Exchange Emergency Distribution and Celebration of Craftswomen, a benefit for The Women’s Building of San Francisco. Ms. Maoki is a graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Pedro Valverde joined the National Employment Lawyers Association in August 2000 as the Member Services Coordinator and is now the Digital Communications & Technology Manager. Prior to joining the NELA team, he worked at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in the Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources practice group. Mr. Valverde relocated to the Bay Area in 1998 from Austin, Texas where he worked for both defense and plaintiff firms.