Somita Basu

chair

Somita Basu is a Founding Principal and the Co-Managing Partner of the Santa Clara and Los Angeles offices of Norton Basu LLP. Ms. Basu addresses complex issues in estate planning, probate and trust administration matters.

Ms. Basu is a member of the California Lawyers Association, and serves as Vice-Chair on the Executive Committee of the Association’s Solo and Small Firm Committee. She also served on the Project 2021 Committee for the California Lawyers Association, providing input into how California’s largest bar association will adapt and function in the future. Ms. Basu is a member of the Silicon Valley Bar Association, which focuses exclusively on the issues of estate planning and probate

Joy thompson

Vice Chair

Joy Thompson, BA has many years of experience developing and implementing best practice programs from the ground up in the education, mentoring and anti-trafficking fields, and developing and maintaining working partnerships with service providers, faith-based organizations, and state governmental agencies. Joy’s experience providing direct services to child survivors of commercial sexual exploitation (CSEC), development of CSEC short term residential therapeutic programing, and providing training for service providers and law enforcement informs her approach to her work. 

Joy is deeply passionate about working to spread awareness about, and decrease demand for the commercial sexual exploitation of children, as well as addressing the systemic inequities that contribute to the disproportionate impact of CSEC on Black Girls. 

Joy has facilitated specialized training locally and nationally for hundreds of community members, prospective mentors, health care providers, social services workers, and numerous community-based organizations. Joy holds a BA from San Francisco State University, is a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor, and a member of the Alameda County Anti-Trafficking Task Force. Joy currently serves as Director of Programs, Building Community & Addressing Exploitation and Trafficking at Youth Collaboratory where she leads strategy and visioning for, preventing and ending human trafficking, enhancing mentoring practices programs spanning 25 states and ending homelessness for Black and LGBTQ+ youth. 

Don Etzbach

Treasurer

Don Etzbach recently joined the Board as Treasurer in 2019. He has extensive nonprofit Board experience having served and advised on matters of finance and pricing, capital improvements for Camp Krem, an outdoor camp for individuals with developmental disabilities and for the Odyssey School, a private middle school in San Mateo. Don retired in 2012 from a career as a pension actuary and human resources consultant with Towers Watson. As a Principal of the firm, Don led client teams supporting large clients with billion dollar pension plans and consulted on all aspects of employee benefits from pensions and savings plans to executive benefits and health plans.

A self-professed “numbers geek,” Don is an Associate in the Society of Actuaries, an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA and charter holder in the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute. He is excited to be able to contribute his financial skills and Board expertise to help support Justice At Last serve trafficked persons.

Meadow Robinson

Secretary

Meadow Robinson, originally from Canada, is a licensed attorney in both Canada and California. She is a Staff Attorney at HomeBase, a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to the social problem of homelessness. Meadow supports Bay Area communities in their efforts to end homelessness by assisting with federal grant application and compliance, training design and facilitation, needs assessments, and strategic planning.

Academic focus in both Women’s Studies and International Human Rights led Meadow to a career of social justice advocacy. Meadow is passionate about using the law as a tool for life-changing impact and broad social change.

Ruth Silver Taube

FOUNDING DIRECTOR

Ruth Silver Taube is the Supervising Attorney of the Worker’s Rights Clinic at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center at Santa Clara University School of Law that provides employment law advice and representation to low income, primarily immigrant clients and screens for human trafficking.  She is also Special Counsel to Legal Aid at Work and an Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, as well as Legal Services Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, a member of the South Bay Coalition’s Executive Board, an Advisory Member of the Santa Clara County Hate Crime Taskforce, and a delegate to the Santa Clara County’s Human Trafficking Commission.

Ruth is Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition and a founding member of the Bay Area Equal Pay Collaborative. She has conducted numerous trainings and panel presentations on employment rights of domestic violence victims, equal pay, workers' rights, and human trafficking to nonprofits, public entities, universities, and community groups. In 2007, Ruth received the Pro Bono Service Award from the California State Bar and, in 2016, she received the Pro Bono Recognition Award from the Santa Clara County Bar Association. In 2013, Ruth received the Unsung Hero Award from the Santa Clara County Victim Support Network, for her workers' rights and human trafficking work.  She was also the keynote speaker at the Vietnamese American Bar Association's dinner in 2013. Ruth also received the Wonder Woman of the Year Award from the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women in 2017 and the Promoting Justice Award from CAIR in 2018. In 2020, she was a co-recipient of the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Award from Freedom Network, USA for her human trafficking work. She received the Freedom Fighter Award from the Silicon Valley/San Jose NAACP and the Modern Day Abolitionist Award for Outstanding Policy and Legal Work from the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking in 2020.

tatyana foltz

Director

Tatyana Foltz is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, gaining her Masters of Social Work at Howard University.  She has spent years as a front line direct service provider collaborating with human trafficking survivors. Being a white Russian-American queer femme trafficked in the suburbs; working with black and latinx (mostly LGBTQ+) girls trafficked by gangs and pimps being culturally humble and informed was paramount. After moving to the Bay Area, she continued to serve survivors of violence, mostly human trafficking; as a psychotherapist in private practice, and subject expert. Tatyana is honored to serve on the Santa Clara Commission against Human Trafficking and as a member of the National Survivor Network.

Jessica Millar

Fundraising Co-Chair

Jessica Millar is a recent transplant to the Bay Area. She hails from Toronto and is a licensed attorney in both California and Ontario, Canada. Jessica currently practices commercial litigation at Perkins Coie, LLP and represents clients across a broad range of industries and practice areas. She maintains a robust and passionate pro bono practice representing charities and individuals on a variety of legal issues, including immigration and asylum work, constitutional law and hate speech issues, and criminal justice matters. In a past life, Jessica was part of the management team at a leading public policy think tank in Canada.

Pouneh Ghaffarian

director

Pouneh Ghaffarian is an attorney for the California Public Utilities Commission where she works on a range of energy, environmental, and environmental justice legal and policy matters. Prior to joining the state, she exclusively worked on political asylum litigation. She obtained her JD, with specialization in international law, from Golden Gate University, MSA in Multinational Trade and Commerce from Boston University and her BA in Literature from UCSC. She is a member of the Energy Bar Association.