ABB Staff

Dina Bakst, Co-President, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dina is Co-Founder and Co-President of A Better Balance.  Prior to co-founding A Better Balance, Dina was an attorney with the NOW Legal Defense & Education fund (now Legal Momentum) where she engaged in litigation and conducted public policy advocacy on a wide range of women's issues including economic justice, child care and reproductive rights.  Prior to Legal Momentum, Dina served as a litigation/employment associate with Kaye, Scholer LLP.  Dina is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan.  Dina currently serves on the Board of the New York Women's Agenda and is a National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League.

Theresa Chalhoub, Law Fellow,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Theresa Chalhoub joined A Better Balance in September 2012 as a Law Fellow.  She graduated in May 2012 with a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an M.P.A., concentrating in domestic policy, from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  During her summers she interned with the New York City Council, ACLU Washington Legislative Office, and the National Women’s Law Center.  While in graduate school she also participated in clinics with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program and the Urban Justice Center’s Community Development Project and co-chaired NYU Law’s Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project and the Woodrow Wilson School’s Gender and Policy Network.  She is a graduate of Saint Louis University with a degree in political science and psychology.

Karen Elam, Director of Development and Communications, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Karen Elam joined A Better Balance in May 2012 as Director of Development and Communications. Karen has more than 15 years of fundraising experience through prior positions at AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps and Montefiore Medical Center’s Division of Community Pediatrics. She served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Honduras in the 1990s, organizing adult literacy classes in over a dozen remote communities, and returned to complete a Masters degree at the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Karen lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband and three school-age children – a daughter and two sons – who are triplets. She is excited to be playing a part in supporting the important mission of A Better Balance.

Elizabeth Gedmark, Law Fellow, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Elizabeth Gedmark, Law Fellow, joined A Better Balance in September 2011. She graduated in May 2011 from the New York University School of Law, where she was co-chair of the Mental Health Law Association and a Feminism & Diversity co-chair of Law Women. She interned over the summers at the ACLU of Tennessee and the New York Legal Assistance Group's Special Litigation Unit. She also interned one semester at the New York Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Rights Project. As a part of NYU Law's Federal Defender Clinic, Elizabeth acted as co-counsel on a criminal defense case in a federal bench trial. She also argued before the Second Circuit on a separate clinic case. Elizabeth was a member of the Medical-Legal Advocacy Clinic, where she assisted individuals with civil legal needs. Elizabeth graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University in 2006 with a degree in Psychology and a minor in International Studies.

Sherry Leiwant, Co-President,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sherry co-founded A Better Balance in 2005. From 2005 to 2006, she was an Adjunct Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law teaching an upper level class on civil rights. From 1996 until 2005, Sherry was a senior staff attorney at NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund running the State Advocacy Project, working on issues intersecting women’s rights and poverty, including reproductive health, violence and child care. Prior to joining NOW Legal Defense Fund, she spent 12 years as a senior staff attorney at the Welfare Law Center, a national legal organization doing litigation and public advocacy on a variety of income support issues around the country. Prior to that, she was a staff attorney at the Department of Health Education and Welfare and an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Sherry graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University and from Columbia University School of Law School. She has three children and has served on the Boards of Bank Street College of Education and Basic Trust Infant and Toddler Center.

Jared Make, Staff Attorney,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jared Make joined A Better Balance in September 2010. He graduated in May 2010 from the NYU School of Law, where he served as President and Vice President of the HIV Law Society and volunteered with OUTLaw, the National Lawyers Guild, and Law Students for Human Rights. He also interned at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project and South Brooklyn Legal Services’ HIV Project. As a member of NYU’s Comparative Criminal Justice Clinic, Jared helped to expand an LGBTQ Domestic Violence Initiative at the Urban Justice Center, a project that involved extensive outreach, coalition-building, and community education. Based on his efforts in both this clinic and the Children’s Rights Clinic, Jared was honored at convocation with the Ann Petluck Poses Memorial Prize for outstanding work in a clinical course requiring student practice. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University and cum laude from NYU School of Law.

Phoebe Taubman, Senior Staff Attorney,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Phoebe started working with A Better Balance in 2007 as a volunteer and served as an Equal Justice Works Fellow with A Better Balance from 2008-2010.  Prior to joining A Better Balance, Phoebe served as a law clerk to the Honorable Faith S. Hochberg of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark and as a litigation associate at Mayer Brown in New York City.  She has also worked as a consultant with Third Way, contributing research and policy analysis to their middle-class project on work-family policy, and as an independent consultant with WorkLife Law.  She is a graduate of Harvard University and of Georgetown University Law Center and is a mom.