Charles River Associates Honored for Investigative Work in Support of Survivors

Kate Powers

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary is honoring an incredible team at Charles River Associates for their investigative and forensic accounting work on behalf of Sanctuary’s clients. 

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is honoring an incredible team at Charles River Associates for their investigative and forensic accounting work on behalf of Sanctuary’s clients. The team includes CRA vice presidents Lisa Dane and Alexandra Knatchbull, principal Niall Murphy, associate principal Victor Epstein, associates Brenden Ebertz and Trishla Jain, and consulting associate Noah Genovesi.

Charles River Associates (“CRA”) has brought their investigative and forensic accounting expertise to fight for survivors and support Sanctuary’s clients. CRA has supported legal teams on countless cases—cases involving the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (“DVSJA”), divorce matters, international child abduction cases, sex trafficking cases, and incarcerated clients. The team at CRA leverages their resources and skills to combine forces with Sanctuary attorneys and pro bono attorneys to achieve significant and tangible results.

Just some of CRA’s investigative contributions to these matters include:

  • Providing intelligence and conducting source work to locate a kidnapped child who was being hidden outside of the U.S.
  • Forensically examining the financials of a former partner in a custody case.
  • For purposes of serving papers in divorce matters, locating countless opposing party’s addresses or businesses, and for purposes of alternative service, locating opposing party’s social media accounts, phone numbers, relatives, or associates.
  • Locating medical records, criminal records, and even archived police records.
  • Locating former neighbors and friends to serve as witnesses to support survivors in DVSJA re-sentencing matters.
  • Identifying a former partner’s undisclosed assets and companies through corporate registry research.

Reflecting on CRA’s work, Nicole Fidler, Senior Project Director of the Pro Bono Project and the Narkis Golan International Child Abduction Initiative at Sanctuary for Families explained their importance to Sanctuary’s work:

“Our partners at CRA always try to find us something we can use to help our clients in their cases. They are incredibly quick to respond and always eager to help. If there is not an obvious answer to a request, they think outside the box to figure out how they can find useful information or provide helpful analysis. We are lucky to have CRA as an ever-reliable resource. Everyone in Sanctuary’s Legal Department loves working them!”

– Nicole Fidler, Sanctuary for Families

As to CRA’s work with Sanctuary, Lisa Dane, Vice President in CRA’s Risk, Investigations & Analytics Group said, “being able to pivot our investigative skillsets to collaborate with Sanctuary and other pro bono lawyers to help improve people’s lives is deeply meaningful and important to our firm. We are honored and grateful for the recognition and congratulate the other honorees and Sanctuary’s team for their exceptional work.”

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Join us at our Above & Beyond Awards Ceremony on October 8, 2024, as we honor CRA’s outstanding pro bono work.

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DLA Piper’s Elena Rizzo Honored for Devoted Representation in Complex Family Law Matters

Kate Powers

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families is thrilled to honor Elena Rizzo, Associate at DLA Piper.

At this year’s Above & Beyond Awards, Sanctuary for Families will be honoring DLA Piper associate Elena Rizzo for her steadfast and devoted representation of multiple clients in complex contested divorce, custody, Order of Protection (“OP”), and appeals cases. 

Elena Rizzo has secured positive outcomes for Sanctuary’s clients through masterful brief writing and successful argument before the First Department in a complicated divorce matter. Most recently, Elena shot into action on a highly complex, lengthy, and time-sensitive contested divorce case where she prepared the case for trial in a matter of weeks.  The case involves a mother of five children whose husband has repeatedly engaged in physical, emotional, and financial abuse.  Just some examples of such abuse include sexually assaulting the mother, failing to pay required child and spousal support, having the mother and children evicted from their home, and constantly violating the OP in the case.

The case was scheduled to go to trial in March 2023 and Elena wasted no time submitting requests for medical, school, dental, and other records for all five of the client’s children, securing copies of prior and current OPs and getting transcripts of prior cases which helped to impeach the client’s abuser.  Armed with as much information as she could get, she immediately turned to trial prep mode.  This involved drafting lengthy direct and cross examinations and preparing dozens of exhibits, including prior court filings, photographs, screenshots of text messages, videos of abuse, copies of police reports, and more.

Though ultimately the trial was rescheduled on the very day it was set to begin, Elena’s work to get this case trial-ready on such a tight timeline was nothing short of remarkable.

Reflecting on this case and Elena’s work, Lindsey Song, Associate Program Director of the Family Law Project at the Queens Family Justice Center explained,

“Elena is extremely dedicated and devoted to her clients and work and immediately shot into overdrive to prepare for an extremely contested and complex custody/OP trial with only weeks to prepare. Despite managing a caseload of her own at her firm, Elena prioritized preparing for the trial and, stunningly, came up with trial-ready exhibits and materials within less than a month of time.”

As to her work with Sanctuary, Elena explained,

“You have a gift when you have a law license. When you do have that gift, you have to make sure that you use that to help others.”

Join us at our Above & Beyond Awards Ceremony on October 25, 2023, as we honor DLA Piper’s outstanding pro bono work.

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Kate Powers is counsel in the White Collar Defense & Government Investigation practice group at Akin’s New York office. She is also a member of Sanctuary’s Pro Bono Council.