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Our Team

Vanita Gupta, Executive Director, served as the 19th Associate Attorney General of the United States, the third-ranking leader in the Department of Justice, from 2021-24. Previously, she was President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and led the DOJ Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration. She was previously deputy legal director of the ACLU and assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale College and NYU Law. Vanita is also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law.  

Susan Inman, Deputy Director, served as the Deputy Secretary for the Governor’s Office for Children in the State of Maryland. Under the Biden Administration, Susan served in the U.S. Department of Justice, first as senior counsel in the Office of Legal Policy and then as chief of staff in the Office for Access to Justice, before joining the Office of the Vice President as a senior policy advisor. Susan also served on the Biden-Harris Transition Team as the personnel lead for the Department of Education. Before the transition, Susan was Chief Counsel and Director of Federal Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Under the Obama Administration, Susan served in multiple roles in the U.S. Department of Education, including as Deputy Chief of Staff. Susan holds a BA from Queen’s University and a JD from Boston University School of Law.

Halley Dunn, Operations Manager, previously supported the Zimroth Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at NYU Law, where she managed major events and partnerships. Before her work at NYU, Halley was the Principal of Politics and Strategy at Cambrya, LLC, where she led AI-driven digital advertising initiatives and also served as Campaign Manager for Nancy Day-Achauer with the Ohio Democratic Party. Halley holds a Master of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy from NYU Wagner, along with a dual bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Drama from NYU. 

Lily Bisantz, Executive Assistant, previously worked as a Program Director of a youth wilderness program in Canada and as a Coordinator in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, where she facilitated restorative justice processes and managed student conduct cases. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder with a B.A. in International Affairs and Religious Studies and is committed to advancing community-centered leadership, restorative practices, and institutional integrity.  

Distinguished Scholars in Residence

Matt Platkin has dedicated his career to taking on the powerful and using the law to protect the public from harm. From 2022 to 2026, Matt served as New Jersey’s 62nd attorney general. In that role, he led national lawsuits that defended our democracy, reshaped industries, fought corruption, and protected the public. Matt previously served as chief counsel to the Governor of New Jersey and practiced at two national law firms. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School.

Karl Thompson has held senior leadership positions in both the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice. From 2022 to 2025, he served as Deputy Counsel to the President, leading a team that provided legal advice to the President and senior presidential advisors on a wide range of domestic policy issues. During the Obama Administration, Karl served for nearly three years as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, providing written opinions and informal advice on a wide range of questions related to the operation of the federal government. Between stints in the government, Karl has worked in private practice, including as a Partner in the Issues and Appeals group at Jones Day and as Counsel at O’Melveny & Myers. Karl previously clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit. Karl graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with High Honors in 2000, and also holds a PhD in Political Theory from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in physics from Harvard University

Senior Fellows

Michael P. Ben’Ary is a 1998 graduate of Gettysburg College and a 2001 graduate of the Villanova University School of Law, magna cum laude. Following several years as a state prosecutor, Mr. Ben’Ary served at the United States Department of Justice for nearly 20 years (2006-2025) as a senior leader at the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. 

Annie Hudson-Price served as Senior Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice, where she led the office’s criminal-economic justice portfolio and managed its Statement of Interest practice. Previously, Annie spent a decade pursuing impact litigation nationwide to advance social, economic, and racial equity, including as Supervising Litigation Attorney at the Policing Project at NYU School of Law and as a member of Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project. She graduated cum laude from Yale College and Harvard Law School.

Peter Hyun served in leadership roles across all three branches of federal government and New York State, most recently as Acting Chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, overseeing privacy, cybersecurity, and consumer protection enforcement. He previously held senior positions at the Department of Justice, including Acting Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs and Chief of Staff to the Associate Attorney General, and served as chief counsel to Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, advising on law enforcement and technology issues. His experience also includes prosecuting civil and criminal fraud cases as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, serving as an Assistant Attorney General in New York, and working in private practice and as a federal judicial law clerk. He graduated from NYU School of Law.

Amy Marshak previously served as senior counsel and Litigation Director for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, where she litigated public-interest cases at all levels of the federal courts and in state courts across the country. Prior to that, she served as an attorney advisor and counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and as an attorney and intelligence analyst in the NYPD Intelligence Division. Amy clerked for Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Amy received her law degree summa cum laude from NYU Law and her undergraduate degree in government and economics from Cornell University. Amy is also the Program Director of the Robert A. Katzmann Symposium at NYU Law.

Dahlia Mignouna was a Deputy Associate Attorney General and the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Associate Attorney General. In that role, she helped supervise multiple divisions in the Justice Department, including the three grantmaking components—the Office of Justice Programs, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, and Office on Violence Against Women—and the Tax Division. Prior to joining the Justice Department, Dahlia was a litigation associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. Dahlia clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Sri Srinivasan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Dahlia holds a JD from Yale Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She holds a BA in Ethics, Politics & Economics, magna cum laude, from Yale College. Dahlia is also a Senior Attorney Advisor at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law.

Research Scholars

Betsy Pearl was the deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) during the Biden Administration, after serving as a Presidential Management Fellow at OJP during the Obama Administration. Between stints at the DOJ, Betsy led criminal justice reform initiatives at the Center for American Progress and has most recently served as a policy researcher at the Council on Criminal Justice.

Jim Santel is an attorney, writer, and scholar who has held positions in the federal government, private practice, and the nonprofit sector. Before joining the Center for Law and Public Trust, he worked at an international law firm and clerked for Judge Cheryl Ann Krause of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Earlier in his career, he served in the U.S. Department of Justice as a speechwriter for Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, and he also worked as a speechwriter at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and The American Scholar, among other publications. He holds a BA in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPhil in history from the University of Cambridge, and a JD from Stanford University.