Board of Directors

Jennifer is Executive Director of the Children’s Action Network (CAN) and the Co-founder of FosterMore, both of which  focus on raising awareness about children in foster care and the 101,000 children in this country waiting for adoptive families. Prior to her tenure at CAN, Jennifer was Director of Public Affairs for Act III Communications and served on the Washington staff of California Senator Alan Cranston and Congressman Mickey Leland.  

Jennifer is a recipient of the Nancy Daly Advocacy Award from the Lewis Hine Awards for Service to Children and Youth and the Outstanding Advocate for Foster Children Award from Raise a Child.

Ms. Barker is an attorney specializing in the area of juvenile law, both dependency and delinquency, and in family law. Ms. Barker developed, implemented and administered court policies and programs designed to improve the functioning of the juvenile court and the lives of dependents and wards under juvenile court jurisdiction. As an attorney for the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles, and as a minor’s counsel in family court, she represented numerous foster children and children in the middle of highly contested custody and visitation proceedings. She also served as a parenting plan coordinator and represented foster-adopt parents. Ms. Barker earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She taught juvenile law in the Children’s Rights Fellow program at Whittier Law School and taught at the UCLA School of Law. She co-authored a law review article, published in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, entitled “A Child-Centered Response to the Elkins Family Law Task Force.” She has been a foster parent herself and adopted a child from the foster care system.

Mr. Drooyan focuses his practice at Scheper, Kim & Harris LLP on civil litigation, white collar criminal defense and securities enforcement matters. He was formerly a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Prior to his work in private practice, Mr. Drooyan was the Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, responsible for oversight and management of over 200 government lawyers and support staff in the Criminal, Civil and Tax Divisions. Mr. Drooyan has served as President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, General Counsel of the Rampart Independent Review Panel, and Deputy Counsel of the Christopher Commission. A former member of the Boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities, the Inner City Law Center and the Lawyer’s Counsel of CRF, Mr. Drooyan is currently on the Board of the Western Center on Law and Poverty and previously served on the Board of Trustees of Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times.

With a career in law and government spanning 30 years, Dario Frommer is a highly sought-after legal and political advisor for clients. He represents and advises Fortune 500 companies, tech start-ups and government agencies before federal, state, and local government entities —including legislative, regulatory enforcement, government procurement, and investigation proceedings.

Dario is the former majority leader of the California State Assembly and has held a variety of high-level, state-government positions. He also chaired the Assembly’s Health Committee, and served as chair of the California Transportation Commission, helping to oversee billions of dollars in funding for highway, road, and transit projects. He was the appointments secretary to Gov. Gray Davis and was Mayor Eric Garcetti’s appointee to the Oversight Board for the dissolution of the Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency and a member of the California Film Commission.

Dario represents clients in legislative, regulatory and enforcement maters in a range across a range of areas, including energy; climate change; health care; tribal gaming; tax policy; infrastructure/transportation; government procurement; and the share economy. He also has substantial experience drafting legislation and ballot initiatives.

Leslie Starr Heimov, Executive Director, has been with the Children’s Law Center of California (CLC) since 1992.  She began her legal career at CLC as a staff attorney, providing direct representation to parents and children in the dependency system, and later moved to a supervising attorney position. In 2004, Ms. Heimov became CLC’s first Policy Director, responsible for CLC’s legislative and policy agendas. In 2007, Ms. Heimov was named Executive Director and under her leadership, CLC expanded its programs to include representation of children in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Placer counties utilizing a multidisciplinary model of representation. She has worked tirelessly to promote best practices for multidisciplinary legal representation and improve outcomes for children and their families in the child welfare system.

Mr. Heinke is an appellate litigator with the California Appellate Law Group, LLP and has argued over 150 appeals in federal and state courts through the country. He is a member of Bet Tzedek’s and the Children’s Law Center’s Boards of Directors. He has previously served as President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Chancery Club, the L.A. Copyright Society, Public Counsel, and the Los Angeles County Bar Foundation. He has also been a member of the State Bar Board of Governors, the California Judicial Council, the Board of Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the California State Bar’s Advisory Committee on the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, and the California Supreme Court’s Task Force on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice. He is a fellow of the American and California Academies of Appellate Lawyers, and has received several awards, including a First Amendment Lifetime Achievement Award, a Best Appellate Lawyer of the Year award, and the Beacon of Justice award. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America and Southern California Super Lawyers for over two decades. He has also received two ‘California Lawyer of the Year’ (CLAY) awards from The California Lawyer magazine.

Mr. Kelly is a corporate, regulatory, governance and finance professional with a career spanning more than 20 years on Wall Street. Currently, Mr. Kelly is the General Counsel of Velocity Financial, Inc., an NYSE-listed real estate finance company.  Prior to taking on the executive position at Velocity, he served as a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel for Jefferies Financial Group Inc., a Fortune 500 company focused on investment and merchant banking. Mr. Kelly previously worked for the international law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and worked as a regulator with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As an attorney licensed in California, New York, and Washington D.C., Mr. Kelly has many years of experience dealing with public, private, and non-profit boards – both as a trusted advisor and board member. He previously was a member of the Board of Directors of Jefferies Family Scholarship and served on its Accounting and Audit Committee. Mr. Kelly earned his BS in Business Administration/Finance, Summa Cum Laude, from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and his JD, Summa Cum Laude, from Pepperdine University School of Law. 

Ms. Kelly is a finance executive with thirty plus years of finance, accounting and capital markets experience in the financial services industry.  Currently, she is a Principal with Apollo Insurance Solutions Group.  Apollo is one the largest alternative investment managers serving many of the world’s most prominent institutional investors.  Prior to Apollo, Ms. Kelly was the Chief Financial Officer of The Palisades Group, LLC, an investment adviser specializing in control-based mortgage credit investment strategies.  Previously, Ms. Kelly held senior positions at Bank of America and Bear Stearns.  Ms. Kelly started her career at KPMG where she provided audit and consulting services to public and private companies. Ms. Kelly earned her BS in Business Administration from California State University, Los Angeles and is a Certified Public Accountant in California.

Mr. Langley has served as President of Scott Langley Insurance Agency, Inc., an independently owned State Farm Insurance Agency, providing insurance and financial services in California since 2002. Before opening the Agency, Mr. Langley practiced law with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, LLP, in their complex litigation group, focusing on employment, business and securities matters. Mr. Langley has extensive law and motion, and discovery experience in both State and Federal courts. Mr. Langley has always believed in contributing to the community in which he lives and has given his time to various volunteer, community-based and non-profit organizations focused on children. For over 27 years, he has volunteered as a youth sports coach for basketball, soccer, flag football, volleyball, and baseball leagues in the greater Los Angeles area. @CoachScottLangley is affectionately known as the “kid whisperer” for his tireless support, motivation, and encouragement of children from diverse backgrounds and skillsets to reach for success. Most recently, through his work with the Children’s Law Center, Mr. Langley served as an attorney for children impacted by the Department of Children and Family Services due to parental abuse, abandonment, and/or neglect. He assisted children clients with the securing of services, including, but not limited to, regional center services, tutoring, transportation, and financial assistance.

Ms. Lifland frequently serves as a mediator. Prior to becoming general counsel to a number of businesses in the medical device industry over the past 20 years, Ms. Lifland was a litigation partner at Cox, Castle and Nicholson, heading the firm’s in-house legal education program and co-editing its annual review of California law relating to the real estate and financial services industries. From 1980-81, Ms. Lifland worked at the U.S Department of Education in Chicago in the Office of Civil Rights Enforcement, where she co-authored a brief in a major school desegregation suit, analyzed census data and prepared an initial desegregation plan in the same case. From 1977-78, Ms. Lifland served as the Coordinator of a Child Advocacy Project for the Legal Aid Foundation of Chicago, Juvenile Impact Litigation Division. As the ombudsperson for juvenile wards of the state housed in mental health facilities, Ms. Lifland represented clients in administrative hearings regarding placement in “least restrictive alternative” housing and other services, wrote a self-help manual for consumers facing the denial or termination of mental health or social services, prepared materials for press conferences and legislative hearings and conducted community education seminars on administrative advocacy.

Samson Mengistu has held various management roles with the City of Los Angeles in a successful public service career that spans more than three decades. He has regularly leveraged strategic relationships across public and private sectors to address complex business needs, and now leads a consulting practice based on those principles. Mr. Mengistu spent 25+ years specializing in airport management. As COO of Los Angeles World Airports, Mr. Mengistu spearheaded operational and technical innovations and supported a team of several thousand colleagues to lead Operations and Emergency Management, Finance and Budget, Administration, Information Technology, Facilities and Maintenance, and Air Service Development at LAX, the fourth largest airport in the world. His capital development and financial planning efforts for LAX guided the construction and acquisition of over $14.8 billion in improvements. Prior to his public sector tenure, he worked extensively in the property management field. He has served on numerous boards and committees in the Los Angeles area. Mr. Mengistu earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a Master of Science in Public Administration from California State University, Los Angeles.

Patricia Phillips is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and is certified by the State Bar of California as a Family Law Specialist, handling issues relating to the dissolution of marriage, including child custody and support issues. Ms Phillips frequently serves as a mediator and arbitrator for business, employment, and family matters. She is a member of various boards, including the Board of Maternal and Child Health Access and Loyola Law School Board of Visitors. She is a frequent lecturer and writer on family law issues, methods of dispute resolution, and professionalism. Ms. Phillips was the first woman to be elected President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and received its highest award, the Shattuck-Price Award. She has received numerous awards, including the ACLU Pro Bono Advocacy Award and most recently was honored for her community service by Maternal and Child Health Access and the Levitt & Quinn Family Law Center.

Terrie L. Robinson is the principal of the Law Office of Terrie L. Robinson, LLP, which represents tribes in tribal cultural resources protection matters.  A fifth-generation Californian, Ms. Robinson has been licensed to practice law in California for thirty-two years and retired from service with the State of California in 2021.  During her sixteen years with the State of California, she served as the Legal Ethics and Accountability Attorney for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System; General Counsel for the California Native American Heritage Commission; Senior Board Counsel to the Chair of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board; and staff counsel to the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community College System and the California Earthquake Authority. Ms. Robinson most recently served as the Directing Attorney of the Sacramento Office of California Indian Legal Services.  

Ms. Robinson holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Stanford University; a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University; and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.  In her spare time, Ms. Robinson enjoys mentoring youth with the Florin High School Law Academy, helping single mothers and military spouses secure employment with the State of California, cooking, reading, and writing. 

Milagros Saxon, PhD is a licensed psychologist and former CEO and owner of New Day Psychotherapy Group, a mental health treatment clinic with several locations to support the Southern California community. Dr. Saxon specializes in working with patients experiencing trauma, eating disorders, addiction, and postpartum concerns. She earned her PhD from Pacifica Graduate Institute and combines her deep knowledge of evidence-based practices with psychoanalytic thought and interventions, which includes the value of creativity in the treatment room. She has advanced training from the Jung Institute of Los Angeles in Jungian Sandplay therapy, which is an effective modality for children, teens, adults, and even teams. From an organizational and operations perspective, Dr. Saxon’s leadership expertise as a Naval Officer has offered her special skills that she uses to develop good teams into great teams. She was trained at Cornell University in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and is an expert in culture cultivation and employee engagement.