As Director of the Division of Public Interest Advocacy, Catherine manages a staff dedicated to serving the interests of the people of New Jersey.  The Division focuses its efforts on vindicating the rights of those who would otherwise lack adequate representation.

Catherine worked at the national office of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) in New York from 1988-2002, the last six years as Director of its Reproductive Freedom Project.  In that capacity, she developed and maintained a nationwide docket of cases aimed at protecting access to comprehensive sexuality education, confidential contraceptive services, safe and legal abortion, and prenatal care and childbirth assistance.  She also directed the Project’s public education and advocacy programs in close collaboration with the ACLU’s affiliate offices in all fifty states.

After leaving the ACLU, Catherine consulted for several civil and human rights organizations on an array of issues and taught a reproductive rights seminar as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark.  In 2004, she joined the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law in a program dedicated to bringing the reality of representative democracy in the United States closer to the ideal.  There, she directed and coordinated efforts to restore voting rights to people with criminal convictions, while also contributing to a broader voting rights and election reform agenda.

Catherine has a 1987 law degree and a 1984 masters degree in political science from Yale.  She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1981.