Bridging the Gap: Practical Cross-Cultural Skills for Consumer Attorneys

Andrea Bopp Stark is a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) with over 25 years of consumer litigation experience working for both legal aid and private law offices. She focuses her work on policy advocacy, writing, and training regarding fair debt collection and mortgage servicing. A contributing author to NCLC’s Fair Debt Collection, Home Foreclosures, and Mortgage Servicing and Loan Modifications manuals, Andrea also serves as the curriculum coordinator for NACA and NCLC’s three primary national conferences each year.

Dr. Susan Jagendorf-Sobierajski has spent her career in the international education and global learning fields. Before her retirement as the executive director of international education at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, Dr. Jagendorf-Sobierajski oversaw collaborative international academic programs, faculty overseas initiatives, and the Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant program. Dr. Jagendorf-Sobierajski holds a bachelor's degree in Spanish and two master's degrees in linguistics and English as a second language. Her Ph.D. in linguistics was awarded by the City University of New York Graduate Center. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and has traveled extensively.

Rebecca Smolar is the Director of Education at NACA. She partners with NACA members to create NACA’s online and in-person educational programs. Before joining NACA, she worked on global workforce skills and knowledge development through the State University of New York (SUNY) and Washington-DC area think tanks. Ms. Smolar and Dr. Susan Jagendorf-Sobierajski co-authored the Guide to Intercultural Skill Development and Assessment. Ms. Smolar received a M.A. in International Communications from American University and her B.S. in Psychobiology from SUNY Binghamton.