Kathleen Russell, Executive Director

Kathleen runs a strategic public affairs consulting firm and is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Judicial Excellence in Marin County, California. Kathleen advocates on behalf of the Center for legislative and administrative changes that will promote judicial accountability and better protect children’s and vulnerable populations rights in the judicial system. She also works extensively with the news media to expose the national family court crisis that is generating thousands of frantic calls and emails to the Center for Judicial Excellence from distressed parents and children from across the country and beyond. Kathleen co-directed and produced the 2008 award-winning documentary Family Court Crisis: Our Children At Risk and served as creative director and writer for the companion photo exhibit entitled Family Court Crisis: Surviving A Broken System.

On the policy front, in May 2010, Kathleen organized the first-ever White House Briefing on the Family Court Crisis. She also led the Center’s 17-month legislative effort with Senator Mark Leno to secure the unanimous passage of an audit request through California’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC). The audit results were released in January 2011 and showed significant problems in nearly every area measured. Kathleen also played a leadership role with Steve Burdo and Connie Valentine in passing AB 1050, and in introducing AB 612 and AB 2475, which were beaten back by the cottage industry that works in the family courts. Kathleen has been invited to address the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women about the family court crisis on March 22, 2011 with a handful of protective mothers and national colleagues who are working to expose and fix the family court crisis.

Carolyn Placente, Program Director

Carolyn brings to the Center for Judicial Excellence over a dozen years of experience in the nonprofit sector where she has served in a variety of capacities including: working as a consultant to community-based organizations, nurturing effective change agents, facilitating strategic planning processes, and building theories of change and related implementation models. She also brings to the Center her extensive training as an educator/academic with outstanding communications skills, familiarity with translating complex concepts into readily digestible language, skills and experience with public speaking, multilingual abilities, and formation as a scholar/researcher rigorously analyzing discourse through a gender, race and class lens to further a critique of power.

Carolyn is also an active volunteer. She is a friend of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission, regularly attending and contributing to their meetings, assisting the Commissioners in their duties to serve the children of Marin and their families. She also was a founding member of CHANGE Marin, a partnership with representatives from the County’s Health and Human Services Department, as well as other nonprofits in Marin, that has developed a training program for the nonprofit and civil service sectors based on cutting edge research into effective communications strategies for promoting social equity.