Executive Administration

Sandor (Sandy) Samuels was appointed as Bet Tzedek’s President and Chief Executive Officer in November 2010. Sandy was certainly not a newcomer to the agency, having served on its Board of Directors for almost 16 years, including a two year term as Board Chair. Prior to his appointment, Sandy spent 30 years in the financial services industry, including 18 years as the Chief Legal Officer of Countrywide Financial Corporation and, following Countrywide’s acquisition by Bank of America Corporation, as the general counsel of Bank of America’s Home Loans and Insurance division.

Sandy has a long history of community and philanthropic activities. He currently serves as President of his synagogue, Adat Ari El in Valley Village, and on the boards of American Jewish University and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. He has also served on the boards of the Los Angeles Urban League, the Housing Preservation Foundation, Shalhevet School, and the Constitutional Rights Foundation.

In 2006, Sandy was named as one of the top 25 lawyers in the San Fernando Valley, California; in 2005, he was named Outstanding Corporate Counsel of the Year by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Corporate Law Department Section; and in 2004, he received the Luis Lainer Founder’s Award from Bet Tzedek Legal Services.

Sandy was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended Princeton University where he earned an A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in Near Eastern Studies and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Sandy then attended UCLA School of Law where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Sandy clerked for Federal District Court Judge Irving Hill (of blessed memory) in the Central District of California and then joined the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olsen.

Ms. Barrett has returned to Bet Tzedek after serving as Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) and then as Chief of Regional Operations following the merger of PJA with Jewish Funds for Justice. She has appeared in and written for the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Journal, The Forward, The San Francisco J-Weekly, Zeek, and CNN. Elissa has served on the Leadership Council of the National Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and has led and appeared at panels for the American Bar Association Equal Justice Conference, the Pro Bono Institute, SmartGrowth America, National Council for Jewish Women, and J Street.

Before PJA, Ms. Barrett worked for Bet Tzedek, first Director of the Housing Conditions Project and then as the founding Director of Pro Bono Programs. It was in this latter position that Elissa helped design and launch Bet Tzedek’s Holocaust Survivors Justice Network.

Ms. Barrett is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Tufts University. She has worked internationally with the South African Human Rights Commission and with the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in Jerusalem, and domestically with the law firms of Loeb & Loeb LLP and Stroock LLP.

David Bubis has been a non-profit management and fundraising executive for over twenty eight years. With expertise in organizational development, Board, volunteer and corporate relations, project planning and implementation as well as all components of fundraising, he has effectively led many organizations through short-term and long-term challenges, both as a full time professional, and subsequently in a variety of consulting roles. Since his professional career began, Mr. Bubis has successfully directed over $115 million in annual fundraising campaigns, planned and launched a $100 million endowment effort and completed a $126 million capital campaign. He also has extensive expertise in cause-marketing and social-entrepreneurial strategies, leading in many cases to significant earned income for strained non-profit budgets.

Mr. Bubis received his Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley; his Masters in Social Work, with a concentration in Community Organization, Planning and Administration from the University of Southern California and his Masters and Honorary Doctorate in Jewish Communal Service from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles.

Ms. Prado joined Bet Tzedek in 2008 as its Director of Human Resources, reporting to the chief executive officer. She attended Loma Linda University, where she graduated with a B.S. degree in Business Administration. Ms. Prado began her career as a Human Resources executive with Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. a global public relations agency headquartered in St. Louis with more than 50 offices in North and South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. She supervised office management and human resources functions for the firm’s Los Angeles office. She joined the firm in 1998 and left in 2001. She subsequently joined PainePR, a national public relations agency headquartered in Irvine, California with offices in Los Angeles and New York City, as a senior executive. As the agency’s Director of People and Facilities, Ms. Prado managed all human resources functions for the 75-professional agency. She helped prepare the agency for its 2004 sale to Cossette Communication Group, and played a pivotal role in the integration of PainePR into Cossette. She also led the design and build of PainePR’s headquarters facility in Irvine and its satellite offices in Los Angeles and New York City.

Fernando Salguero, who was born in Argentina, spent 20 years in Boston before coming to California. He holds a BSIE and an MBA from Boston University. Fernando has comprehensive accounting and business experience from working in both the profit and nonprofit sectors and has been an auditor and commercial lender in the Northeast.

Diego Cartagena has focused his legal career on addressing issues of access to justice.  As a former Equal Justice Works Fellow and Teen Advocate with The Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice’s Teen LA project, Diego helped give low income teen mothers and fathers a voice in court by providing them with legal advocacy and outreach in the areas of family and immigration law.  Diego then went on to serve as Pro Bono Director for The Alliance for Children’s Rights, while simultaneously serving as the agency’s Probate Legal Guardianship Program Director.  Diego is a “Double Bruin,” having received his Bachelors of Arts Degree in American Literature and Culture from the University of California at Los Angeles and his Juris Doctorate from the University of California at Los Angeles’ School of Law, where he concentrated on Critical Race Studies.

Diego currently serves as a board member of the Legal Aid Association of California and OneJustice. 

Gus May graduated from Northeastern University Law School in 1991. He joined Bet Tzedek in 2001 and serves as the Directing Attorney of Bet Tzedek’s office in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. Gus oversees the Employment Rights Project, Kinship Care Project and the Elderlaw/Conservatorship Clinic. His legal career has been devoted entirely to working in the public interest. Before joining Bet Tzedek, Mr. May was the Legal Director at Public Interest Investigations where he oversaw employment discrimination investigations for the Los Angeles City Office of Discrimination Investigations. Prior to that, he worked as the Litigation Director at the Center for Law in the Public Interest, as a Public Interest Fellow with a private public-interest oriented law firm, and as a law clerk for two federal district court judges, the Hon. Lawrence K. Karlton in the Eastern District of California, and the Hon. A. Howard Matz in the Central District of California.

Janet Morris has practiced in the area of elderlaw as an attorney with Bet Tzedek Legal Services since 1985.  Through her Family Caregiver Project, Ms. Morris assists elders and their caregivers with a variety of legal problems.  She has also served as a past Director of Bet Tzedek’s Nursing Home Advocacy Project.  Ms. Morris has served on numerous statewide committees and as technical advisor to many projects concerning the legal rights of elderly and incapacitated individuals.  She has advised the State of California Alzheimer’s Guidelines Committee on Legal Issues, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Association, California Southland Chapter.  She has co-authored numerous articles and publications, including the Caregiver Companion, and has delivered hundreds of speeches in both English and Spanish.

Ms. Morris is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and University of San Francisco School of Law.

Originally trained as a cell biologist, Perry Simons began his professional life as a medical laboratory scientist working in surgical pathology. He was involved in clinical casework and authored several research publications. Following many interesting and fruitful years in hospital-based work, he decided to make a profession of what was up until that point his avocation, serving his community in the non-profit environment of Jewish communal work. He joined the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, first as its Director of Community Relations and then served as its Executive Director. Mr. Simons is experienced in both annual fundraising efforts, multi-million dollar capital campaigns that garnered support from many local and national foundations, and general non-profit operations. He has led political/business fact finding trips to Israel with the governor of Oklahoma and the mayor of Tulsa. In addition to this background, he has consulted in small office computer integration and electronic record keeping systems.

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island, Mr. Simons earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Boston University and holds a master’s degree in cell biology from Hofstra University.