Our Team

Stephen Dane, Board Chair

Stephen M. Dane is known throughout the fair housing and civil rights communities for litigating hundreds of fair housing and civil rights claims on behalf of victims of discrimination and the advocacy organizations who represent them.

Steve has received numerous awards and honors for his civil rights work, including the Public Interest Law Award from Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, HUD’s Fair Housing Award for Outstanding Contribution and Commitment to Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, the Fair Housing Award from the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, the Community Access Award from the Ability Center of Greater Toledo, the Award of Excellence for the Promotion of Equal Housing Opportunity for All People from the National Fair Housing Alliance, and The University of Toledo College of Law Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 1998 Dane was selected as one of eight Lawyers of the Year by Ohio Lawyers Weekly. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Civil Rights. In 2022 Dane was named the Best Lawyers® 2022 Civil Rights “Lawyer of the Year” in Toledo, Ohio. He is regularly interviewed about fair housing issues by the press and news outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, The American Banker, Realtor.com, Bloomberg Businessweek, and others.

In addition to being a lawyer, Dane is a math nerd, science geek, and prolific author. He has a BS in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame, and graduated from The University of Toledo College of Law cum laude. After serving as a law clerk for the Honorable Pierce Lively of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, Dane returned to his home town of Toledo. For the first segment of his career he was a shareholder and eventually served as president of the Ohio litigation firm, Cooper & Walinski, representing both plaintiffs and Fortune 500 defendants in complex civil litigation throughout the United States. For his second act, from 2005-2019, Dane helped build a 5-person law firm, Relman, Dane & Colfax, PLLC, into a 24-lawyer national civil rights powerhouse. During this time Dane also served as Acting Judge of the Perrysburg, Ohio, Municipal Court for 17 years. Dane is now easing into his retirement years as a solo practitioner, Dane Law LLC. Dane believes strongly in professional bar involvement, and served on the Toledo Bar Association Board of Trustees for 10 years. In 2010 and 2011, Dane was elected and served as President of the Toledo Bar Association.

Dane has been married for over 40 years to his high school sweetheart, Kim. They have 5 adult children and 9 grandchildren.

Keshia Allen Horner, Secretary

Keshia Allen Horner (she/her) is the founder of Mariposa Analytics, a company dedicated to helping organizations maximize their impact through insight, action, and evolution. Her passion for improving organizational performance stems from her upbringing, where her parents — both teachers — instilled in her the belief that knowledge is a gift to be shared in service of others.

Keshia’s desire to serve and make a meaningful impact led her to launch Mariposa Analytics. She rejects the notion that organizations seeking consulting services are broken. Instead, like most living things, organizations undergo growth and change, and the natural process of this growth calls for transformation to adapt to a new way of being. Keshia and her team at Mariposa Analytics believe in this process of evolution and transformation, working closely with each client to identify areas where transformation is needed. They develop personalized strategies to help each organization reach its full potential.

Keshia’s journey started as a government auditor, where she spent almost 14 years at both the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the City and County of Denver Auditor’s Office. She then spent over three years as the deputy director of a nonprofit organization. She holds a Master of Public Administration, as well as Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Public and Urban Affairs from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

With her experience and expertise, Keshia brings the full breadth of her knowledge to help organizations develop actionable strategies, make structural improvements, and refine their operations to align service delivery with desired outcomes.

In her spare time, Keshia enjoys exploring the great outdoors, trying new foods, and traveling to new places with her family and friends. She loves nothing more than hitting the trails for a run, embarking on a camping trip, or simply taking in the beauty of nature. As a food enthusiast, Keshia also spends time cooking and sharing her culinary creations with loved ones during get-togethers, seeing food as an expression of culture, heritage, and love.

Mari Newman, Chair Emeritus

Mari Newman (she/her) is a civil rights and employment law attorney who has spent over twenty years advocating on behalf of the underdog and disenfranchised against corrupt government and corporations. She is a founding member of Newman | McNulty, LLC, a civil rights and employment law firm rooted in client-centered advocacy, movement lawyering, pro bono service, and representation of marginalized communities.

For over two decades, Mari Newman has litigated many of Colorado’s most challenging civil rights and employment cases, across a broad spectrum of issues. She achieved outstanding results for her clients, including many multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements, as well as meaningful changes in law and policy to prevent future wrongs.

Best Lawyers in America has named Mari Newman as Denver’s Lawyer of the Year for both Civil Rights Law and Employment Law – Individuals.

Mari Newman has received numerous awards for her work from organizations including the Southern Center for Human Rights, the ACLU of Colorado, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the Colorado Women’s Bar Association Foundation, the LGBT Bar Association Foundation, the Colorado Press Association, and Colorado Super Lawyers, to name just a few.

Mari’s civil rights work extends outside the courtroom, where she serves on the Board of Directors for organizations including Disability Law United, the LGBT Bar Association Foundation, and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association. Mari Newman advocates in the legislature, writes and lectures, and marches for social justice.

Alan Chen

Alan is a lifetime advocate for civil rights. His research includes federal remedies for civil rights violations, free speech doctrine and theory, and lawyering for social change. He is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Civil Rights. In recent years, he has litigated several high-profile, pro bono civil rights cases in the federal courts, including two suits challenging so-called Ag Gag laws that criminalize efforts of activists and journalists to expose misconduct on factory farms, an excessive force case against law enforcement officers who used pepper spray to subdue peaceful environmental protesters, and a successful facial challenge to a Colorado law mandating that all students and teachers recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Since joining the University of Denver Sturm College of Law faculty in 1992, Alan has received awards for teaching, contributions to the law review and pro bono legal work. Before entering teaching, Alan was a civil liberties litigator with the ACLU’s Chicago office, focusing primarily on cases concerning the First Amendment, police misconduct, and privacy rights. Before that, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Marvin E. Aspen, U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois. Alan received his J.D. from Stanford University in 1985.

Amanda Francis Owen

Rufina A. Hernández

Rufina A. Hernández, Esq. (she/her/ella) was appointed as the Associate Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity at the University of Denver in 2016, having previously served as the director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division of the State of Colorado.  She was later appointed as the ADA Coordinator for DU in 2020.  In her roles at the university, she is responsible for the Affirmative Action Plan, diversity recruitment, anti-bias training in hiring practices and ADA compliance.   

Prior to returning to Colorado, she served as the executive director of the Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE), a coalition of the nation’s most prominent civil rights and education advocacy organizations focused on high school education reform. Hernández led the coalition’s federal policy and advocacy agenda, as well as its public outreach and education activities. 

 A leading voice on solutions to the challenges facing African American, Asian, Latino, and Native students and teachers, Hernández has a long record of civil rights and education advocacy.   Prior to joining CHSE, she joined the National Education Association’s (NEA) as director of NEA’s Human and Civil Rights (HCR)  department  and later as the associate director of the External Partnerships and Advocacy department.  As director of the HCR department, she developed strategies to promote culturally competent teaching aimed at improving academic achievement among students from diverse backgrounds.  During this time, Hernández also led a series of summits on the status of education for students of color, as well as for LGBT and female students.  

 Prior to her work at NEA and CHSE, Hernández was executive director of the Latin American Research and Service Agency (LARASA), a Colorado-based civil rights organization. During her tenure there, she advocated for policy reform in civil rights issues affecting the Latino community, including health, education, employment, and immigration. She also created a coalition with other civil rights organizations which equipped local and statewide ethnic minority community-based organizations to advocate for common political and legislative issues. 

 A graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, Hernández honed her skills as a trial attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Denver. As a specialist in public utility regulation, consumer protection, and bankruptcy law, she litigated two class action lawsuits involving consumer protection. Hernández later developed policies and programs to address the needs of a diverse student community as assistant dean of students at the University of Denver College of Law. And as executive director of the State Bar of New Mexico, Hernández became the first Latina in the nation to lead a state bar organization. The American Bar Association (ABA) appointed her to its Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, Law School Accreditation Committee in 2008, and she has also served on other ABA, Colorado Bar Association and Denver Bar Association committees and commissions as well as other non-profit and local government commissions.    

 A native of New Mexico, Hernández holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New Mexico and a Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center.   

*Addendum:  Ms. Hernández retired in Sept. 2021.    

Bill Lann Lee

Bill has been a civil rights attorney for more than 40 years with expertise in challenging employment discrimination and disability access. From December 1997 to January 2001, Bill served as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in the United States Department of Justice in the Clinton Administration, as the nation’s top civil rights prosecutor. He has brought disability access cases against Netflix to obtain closed captioning on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf, and against Burger King and Walmart on behalf of individuals who use wheelchairs for mobility. His employment discrimination work includes prosecution cases against Wet Seal, Costco, Best Buy, Abercrombie & Fitch, and McCormick & Schmick’s.

Before joining Disability Law United, Bill was a shareholder at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C. in Oakland, CA, and previously a partner at Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP.  Earlier in his career, he spent 18 years as an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and headed the Legal Defense Fund’s western regional office in Los Angeles. Bill earned his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and his law degree from Columbia University School of Law. Bill is admitted to practice in California and New York (inactive).

When not busy fighting injustice, Bill spends time reading history, biographies, and science fiction. He’s an avid traveler and especially loves visiting his grandson, Oliver.

Sue Simon

Sue Simon has a background in public health, human rights, and social justice. For 40 years, she has worked internationally (Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia) and domestically for a variety of nonprofit organizations, foundations, and government agencies. She has developed and implemented programs around HIV prevention and care issues; harm reduction and safer drug use; sexual health and rights; criminal justice reform; and arts/culture. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and graduated from Tufts University.  As a person living with a profound hearing loss from birth, Sue is grateful to the disability rights community for working to ensure no one is left behind.