Staff

Kevin Manuel-Bentley, Paralegal, joined the AIDS Law Project in October 2010. As the Housing Paralegal, he represents clients in a variety of housing issues, mainly Landlord-Tenant disputes and against utility companies. Kevin, a Baltimore native, graduated from Swarthmore College, where he majored in Political Science and double-minored in Spanish and Black Studies. Coming from a tennis family, he spends most of his free time playing tennis with family and friends.

Rafiah Davis, Esq., Housing Attorney, joined the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania in October 2008. Before coming to the AIDS Law Project, she spent several years successfully representing clients in social security disability cases. A member of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars, she is a 2005 graduate of Villanova University School of Law and a 2001 graduate of Howard University. While in law school, Rafiah participated in Villanova’s Civil Justice Clinic, where she assisted clients who could not afford to pay for legal services in custody and disability benefits cases. She also spent a summer working at the Montgomery County Public Defenders Office and another at the Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania. In October 2009, Rafiah joined the board of Haven Youth Services, Inc., a nonprofit that provides recreational, educational, and social services to children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Ronda B. Goldfein, Esq., Executive Director, is a nationally recognized advocate for people living with HIV/AIDS and has led the organization since 2000. She has been listed among the top 100 HIV/AIDS activists in the United States by POZ magazine and website, and currently serves on the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission, the official civilian oversight agency for the city’s police department. Goldfein received the “Haven Hero Award” from the Haven Youth Center, Inc., which provides services to HIV-positive youth, in late 2011. She is a vice president and member of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, a member of the board of directors of the ACLU’s Philadelphia chapter, and sits on the Institutional Review Board for Philadelphia FIGHT’s Jonathan Lax Treatment Center for HIV/AIDS. A graduate of the University of Miami, Goldfein received her J.D. from the Shepard Broad Law Center of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, New  Jersey and New York.

Tiffany Hair, Director of Administration and Finance, began as our financial consultant in 1995. As an independent consultant with 25 years of nonprofit accounting and administration experience behind her, Tiffany has assisted in day-to-day finance and office operations, maintained organizational books and records, and supported audits for a variety of agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Tiffany graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in political science, and now is pursuing a master’s in public administration. She was featured in South Jersey magazine for her Meetup.com group, “Saturday Dining in Cherry Hill.” (The article can be read here.)

Julia Heald, Paralegal, began working for us in October 2010. She works with clients on getting public benefits, resolving criminal records, and obtaining birth certificates and other types of identification. Julia graduated from Haverford College where she majored in Political Science with an emphasis on government entitlement programs, and minored in Mathematics. She enjoys cooking, baking, and “change ringing” in Philadelphia’s bell towers. (See http://www.nagcr.org/pamphlet.html for an explanation!)

Anna Kastner, Intake Advocate, started in August 2011. She came to us already having experience assisting clients, having most recently worked as a benefits-outreach specialist and also as an outreach coordinator. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and intends to pursue a law degree in the future.

Yolanda French Lollis, Esq., Managing Attorney, supervises the AIDS Law Project’s staff of lawyers and paralegals. Since joining the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania in 1993, she has represented people living with AIDS at their Social Security Administration hearings and has won thousands of dollars in retroactive benefits for people with AIDS who were wrongfully denied SSD or SSI. In 1998, she initiated the HIV and Immigration Project at the AIDS Law Project. She has successfully represented people living with HIV in getting asylum and legal permanent residency. Immigration lawyers across the nation frequently consult her for advice and technical assistance about overcoming the barriers to immigration for people living with HIV. Although the majority of her work involves Social Security and immigration, she also advocates for the rights of individuals living with HIV in a broad range of issues, including discrimination. She has negotiated settlements for people who were fired from their jobs or refused dental treatment because of HIV positive status. She frequently lectures and provides technical assistance on the issue of HIV confidentiality to a wide audience, including doctors, medical students and social service agencies.

Asha Ramachandran, Esq., Deputy Managing Attorney, specializes in all areas of public benefits including Social Security, welfare and Medicare Part D. She previously worked at Community Legal Services, volunteered with the Senior Law Center and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Victim/Witness Services Unit. Asha earned an attorney at law degree from Sri Lanka Law College in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1991 and a bachelor of law degree from The Open University of Sri Lanka in 2000. She followed several members of her family to the United States in 2000. Attorneys who attend law school outside of the United States can qualify to sit for the Pennsylvania Bar by earning 30 credits at an ABA-Certified law school. Asha did her American studies at the University of Baltimore School of Law, in Baltimore, MD, and Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, DE. She was admitted to practice in Pennsylvania in 2005.

Scriabin Rimerman, Facilities Manager, is responsible both for the physical upkeep of the offices and for purchasing everything from pencils to telephone systems. A one-time CPA, Rimerman has an accounting degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Indiana, PA.

Sarah Schalman-Bergen, Esq., Of Counsel, is an attorney at Berger & Montague, P.C., where her practice includes plaintiffs’ class and collective action employment litigation.  As volunteer of counsel for the AIDS Law Project, she litigates HIV/AIDS discrimination and confidentiality cases.  Sarah first became involved with the AIDS Law Project in 2006. Between 2007 and 2009, she served as the Shestack Public Interest Fellow at WolfBlock LLP, where she spent half of her time litigating cases for the AIDS Law Project.  She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and is the author of “CDC’s Call For Routine HIV Testing Raises Implementation Concerns,” an article published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 2007; 35 (1):223-7.  In 2010, Sarah was honored as an “Unsung Hero” by the Legal Intelligencer, Pennsylvania’s daily law journal, for her pro bono work with the AIDS Law Project.

Arlene Vasquez, Receptionist, is fluent in both English and Spanish. Her experience includes being an administrative assistant at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza hotel, where she coordinated details for weddings, meetings and other special events. She was also a receptionist at the Philadelphia law firm of Corson, Getson & Schatz.

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Founder of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania

David W. Webber, J.D., of counsel.

In 1988, he founded the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit public interest law firm, where he served as both Executive Director (1988-1992) and Director of Education and Policy (1992-1994). He has served on the Advisory Board to the National Lawyers Guild AIDS Network (1986-1994), the American Bar Association’s AIDS Coordinating Committee (2001-2003), and the Advisory Board for the Center for HIV Law & Policy (2005-2007). David has written extensively on HIV legal issues, both for professional and nonprofessional readers. He is included as a consultant on the AIDSLEX international roster of practitioners with experience in HIV and human rights.

Most recently, he edited and contributed several chapters to the fourth edition of AIDS and the Law (2008), the leading treatise on the subject, which he updates in annual supplements. From 2000-2007, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the AIDS & Public Policy Journal. His articles have appeared in The Nation, Journal of Health Care Law & Policy, Journal of the American Medical Association and AIDS & Public Policy Journal. Since 1997, David also has maintained a web site on HIV/AIDS legal issues, AIDSandtheLaw.com.

Beginning with his 2004 article in the AIDS & Public Policy Journal on “Self-Incrimination, Partner Notification, and the Criminal Law,” David has frequently criticized efforts to use the criminal law in response to the HIV epidemic. He has also presented on this or related HIV and criminal law topics at recent annual conferences of American Bar Association AIDS Coordination Project (Dallas, Texas 2008, and Portland, Oregon 2006); the National HIV Prevention Conference (Atlanta, Georgia 2003); and the Lavender Law Conference (New York City 2003). He is currently a consultant on the Center for HIV Law and Policy’s Positive Justice Project. He received his B.A. degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania (1976) and J.D. degree from Temple University (1980).