Nicole Dozier, North Carolina Justice Center. Nicole is the Director of the Health Advocacy Project at North Carolina Justice Center (Justice Center). She joined the Justice Center in 1996 in the role of Senior Litigation Paralegal-Hyatt Coordinator of the Hyatt project for Class Counsel after having worked for seven years as a disability specialist with the Social Security Administration’s state agency. Nicole’s work has helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits for people in North Carolina living with disabilities. She has also worked with Justice Center litigators on consumer class actions and other impact litigation. In 2007, she became the Assistant Project Director of the Health Advocacy Project, spearheading the effort to keep organizations and individuals engaged around health care reform. Nicole retired as Apex Mayor Pro Tempore in December 2021, where she championed initiatives and projects around public engagement, equity, and inclusion.

Berneta L. Haynes is a senior attorney who focuses on consumer energy policy and medical debt. At NCLC, she recently authored Protecting Older Adults from Surprise Medical Bills. She is also a contributing author to the medical debt chapter of NCLC’s Collection Actions practice manual. Before joining NCLC, she served as a director at Georgia Watch, a state-based consumer advocacy organization in Atlanta, where she worked to make energy programs, quality healthcare, financial protection, and civil justice more equitable and accessible for all. At Georgia Watch, she led coalitions, facilitated forums, steered the passage of crucial medical billing legislation, and authored consumer-facing educational materials (such as the Georgia Consumer Guide for Medical Bills and Debt) and policy guides on energy equity, financial protection, and healthcare billing. Previously, she practiced law at the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago and Southern Environmental Law Center. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in English, Writing, and Psychology from Drury University, her Master’s degree in English from University of Iowa, and her law degree from University of Iowa College of Law. 

Marceline White, Economic Action Maryland. Marceline, an award-winning and nationally-recognized consumer advocate, is the Executive Director of Economic Action Maryland (formerly Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition). She leads the coalition’s 10,000 supporters in promoting economic rights, equity, and housing justice throughout Maryland. Marceline has led the coalition’s efforts in passing four first-in-the nation bills related to for-profit colleges, medical debt, and debtors prisons. She’s authored three first-in-the nation state-level reports on for-profit colleges, debt settlement, and debt collection practices and served as the co-chair of the Consumer Protection committee of AG Frosh’s COVID-19 Task Force. In 2020, Marceline received the inaugural Woodside Award from the CASH Campaign, given to an individual for their work on addressing systemic economic equity issues.

Adam S. Minsky is licensed in Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont and is one of the nation’s leading authorities in student loan law. He remains one of the only attorneys in the country with a practice devoted entirely to helping student loan borrowers and their families. Attorney Minsky provides counsel, legal assistance, and direct advocacy for borrowers on a variety of student loan-related matters. He has been interviewed by major national media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, and has been named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer “Rising Star” multiple times since 2015. Attorney Minsky regularly speaks to students, graduates, and advocates about student debt, and writes about the topic in a variety of publications and platforms. He has published three handbooks including The Student Loan Handbook for Law Students and Attorneys, published by the American Bar Association. Attorney Minsky has also been contributing author to the National Consumer Law Center’s manual, Student Loan Law. He is a senior contributor at Forbes.com, where he writes about the latest developments in the student loan space. Attorney Minsky received his undergraduate degree, with honors, in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, and his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law.

Rob Treinen is a father, husband, skateboarder, and consumer protection lawyer. He loves all these roles.  He loves living in Albuquerque, NM. He has been a consumer protection lawyer his whole career, starting at New Mexico Legal Aid in 1999, and now running his own one-attorney firm. 

John O’Neal represents persons across North Carolina in matters of auto fraud, solar fraud, unfair/harassing debt collection, credit reporting issues, illegal repossessions, and various other civil matters. John was a founding member and chair of the Consumer Areas of Practice Section of the North Carolina Advocates of Justice (formerly NCATL) and has provided seminars, resources, and advice to countless lawyers and consumers across North Carolina. John is a proud alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the UNC School of Law.

Adam Thoresen is a senior staff attorney with the public interest law firm, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. He has worked at JALA for over ten years, and his practice is currently focused on FCRA litigation related to landlord/tenant debts and other inaccuracies in tenant screening reports. Adam has litigated cases with all of the Big Three Consumer Reporting Agencies as well as specialty debt collectors whose focus is the collection of residential landlord/tenant debts. Adam handles cases on an individual and class basis under the FCRA, FDCPA, FCCPA, and other consumer protection statutes.

John Ukegbu is a senior staff attorney at Northeast New Jersey Legal Services, where he represents low-income consumers. He has served as a member of the District Ethics Committee and as a trustee for the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection. He served as a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Special Civil Part Practice and is the second vice-president of the Hudson County Bar Association. He is a graduate of Western New England University School of Law. 

Rebecca Smolar is the Associate Director of Education at NACA. She is responsible for partnering with NACA members to develop and strengthen NACA’s education and training offerings and to ensure that members are kept abreast of trends in the field. Before joining NACA, she created continuing education programs for high school teachers and college professors through the State University of New York and Washington-DC area think tanks. She started her career as an Officer of Public Affairs at the Embassy of Israel where she gave hundreds of speeches about Israel and U.S.-Israel relations. Ms. Smolar received a M.A. in International Communications from American University and her B.S. in Psychobiology from SUNY Binghamton.

Andrea Bopp Stark is a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center Boston office focusing on writing and teaching about fair debt collection practices and mortgage servicing issues. Andrea is the Conference Curriculum Coordinator and  is also involved in advocating for foreclosure prevention and fair debt collection policies on the state and federal level. Andrea is a contributing author to NCLC’s Fair Debt Collection, Home Foreclosures, and Mortgage Servicing and Loan Modifications legal manuals.

Stacy Bardo has dedicated her law practice for the last 20+ years to the protection of everyday people. Based in Chicago, Stacy files suits for consumers who have been the victims of unlawful business practices, consumer fraud, wrongful repossessions, automobile fraud, identity theft, and false credit reporting. She has been appointed class counsel in numerous national and statewide class actions certified in IL, NY, CA, MI, MN, and WA. Stacy is a past co-chair of NACA’s Board of Directors and currently serves on the NCLC/NACA Conference Steering Committee. Stacy is a graduate of Northwestern University and Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Amy Wells provides legal consulting to other firms and practitioners. She offers guidance on complex litigation, case development, and project management of mass actions, building on her 20 years of consumer advocacy with a focus on class and multidistrict litigation with an emphasis on TCPA, FCRA, and product defect cases. Amy has served the legal community through various leadership positions in her home base of Chicago and Ohio, where she got her start; these include having served as state chair for both NACA and OAJ, presidency of the local trial lawyers association, appointment to the Ohio Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, and several board positions. 

Patty Hsue is senior attorney in the Division of Marketing Practices of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.  She has investigated and filed cases against health insurance scams, charity frauds, and government imposters.  She has also led multiple program areas including the FTC’s technical initiatives on robocalls, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and is currently leading the FTC’s efforts to address fraud against older adults.  As part of the older adults program area, Patty is also the Stop Senior Scams Act Coordinator and is overseeing the agency’s implementation of the Act’s mandates.

Cora Hume is an Attorney with the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s Office for Older Americans. Prior to joining the CFPB in 2012, Cora was the Legislative Director at the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA). Cora has over twenty years of advocacy and legal experience including serving as a legal aid attorney in Maryland, practicing voting rights law during the 2004 Presidential election, working as an associate at a plaintiff-side labor law firm, and serving as an Honors Attorney at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s Fair Housing Division. Cora is a graduate of Williams College and Northeastern University School of Law.

Bridget Small is a writer, educator, and speaker in the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Consumer and Business Education. For more than 30 years, she has contributed to fraud prevention education, community-based programs, and research related to older adults and fraud. She is an experienced advocate, who has spoken at conferences and with media, managed a telemarketing fraud prevention campaign, and coordinated a grant-funded research program to contact at-risk older adults. She holds a JD from George Washington University Law School.