Natalie Rea

President, has been a staff attorney in the Criminal Appeals Bureau of The Legal Aid Society for 25 years where she has argued hundreds of case in New York’s state and federal courts.  For the past 20 years, she has also worked on rule of law development in post conflict countries, focusing on access to quality criminal defense services for the poor.  Born in New York and raised in France, Natalie graduated from the Université d’Aix-Marseille and Fordham University School of Law. She founded Legal Aid Rwanda in 1996, and its successor organization, The International Legal Foundation in 2001.  She was the executive director of the ILF until 2012 and now serves on its board of directors.  Natalie was a member of the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda Council on Rule of Law between 2011 and 2013. Before joining The Legal Aid Society, she clerked for the Honorable Thomas C. Platt in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and worked at the law firm of Sherman & Sterling in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles.

Richard Joselson,

Vice-President, is a supervising attorney in the Criminal Appeals Bureau of The Legal Aid Society in New York where he directs the bureau’s post-conviction caseload.  Richard has argued hundreds of cases in state and federal appellate courts in New York obtaining landmark decisions.  In 2007, he co-authored the "Report on the Conviction of Jeffrey Deskovic," commissioned by now Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, The Honorable Janet DiFiore, to examine the causes of the wrongful conviction of Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.  A graduate of Columbia College and the Yale Law School, Richard has lectured on criminal law and criminal procedure issues and on New York criminal cases in federal habeas corpus courts at The Legal Aid Society, Columbia and New York University law schools as well as to the Association of Supreme Court Justices of New York State. In the years following the re-enactment of the death penalty in New York, Richard served as a consultant to the Capital Defender Office on appellate and post-conviction issues. He was a founding board member of Legal Aid Rwanda and The International Legal Foundation.