NEW YORK (March 19, 2009)— Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls, is pleased to announce that Elena J. Adolphus, assistant general counsel at Pfizer Inc. and Rebecca L. Eisenberg, general counsel of Pure Digital Technologies, Inc. have joined the organization’s board of directors.
Linda Willett, chair of the board of directors of Legal Momentum, said, “We are delighted to have two such accomplished and passionate individuals join Legal Momentum’s board. Their experience and expertise will complement an already strong board and will help us to move Legal Momentum’s agenda forward in new directions.”
Ms. Adolphus has a strong history of success in both the private and nonprofit sector. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2000, her legal career included corporate associate positions at Manhattan law firms Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Jacobsen and Robinson, Silverman, as well as a clerkship with the New York Court of Appeals. At Pfizer, Ms. Adolphus was recently named Clinical Trial Lead Counsel, with oversight of the legal team that supports clinical development across the company.
Ms. Adolphus has supplemented her corporate legal practice with a number of pro bono activities involving persons seeking asylum in the United States, pro se defendants in New York County civil court cases, and low-income artists and non-profit groups. She currently serves on the Pfizer Global Research and Development’s Diversity & Inclusion Council, and is the legal division representative to the Pfizer U.S. Women’s Steering Committee.
Ms. Adolphus has long been an advocate for women and girls. Before launching her legal career, she worked in education and journalism on the Caribbean island of Montserrat where she grew up. There, she helped to start a national newspaper, writing a regular column focused on women’s rights issues, and taught English and French Literature at the high school and college level.
Ms. Adolphus holds a B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and a M.A. from the State University of New York at Albany. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Albany Law School of Union University, where she was an editor of the Albany Law Review.
Like Ms. Adolphus, Ms. Eisenberg has complimented her legal career with an interest in journalism and nonprofit advocacy. An early employee of many notable Internet start-ups, including Ecast.Inc. and Cyboranic Media, Ms. Eisenberg was hired as the second lawyer at the now ubiquitous PayPal, where she served as Senior Counsel for six years. From mid-2007 to mid-2008 she served as vice president and general counsel at AdBrite Inc., before moving into her current role as general counsel of Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of the now famous Flip Video camcorders.
During her time in the private sector, Ms. Eisenberg applied her knowledge of the tech industry to the non-profit sector, serving on the Craigslist Foundation’s board of directors as well as an advisor to Kiva.org, a microfinance non-profit. She also is the founder and president of Loco Parentis, a network of almost 600 professional working mothers-attorneys in the San Francisco Bay area. While in law school, Ms. Eisenberg spent time at internships both at the Center for Public Representation in Boston, and at Equal Rights Advocates, a feminist advocacy law firm in San Francisco.
Ms. Eisenberg is widely recognized as a pioneer in online communications after establishing one of the earliest blogs in 1995, called “Read Me,” which she continued until 2000. In 1999, ZDNet.com honored her for her contribution to technology journalism by naming her one “Top 25 Women of the Web.” She received acclaim for her CBS Marketwatch column, “NouveauGeek,” which she maintained from 1998 to 2001. She has written for a number of publications about Internet and technology issues, including Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Entertainment Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Her two published articles in the Harvard Law Review and one published article in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism advocate in favor of stronger rules against sexual harassment and better protection for women seeking to exercise their reproductive rights.
Ms. Eisenberg received her B.A. from Stanford University and her J.D., cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and president of the Harvard Law Chapter of the ABA.
About Legal Momentum: Founded in 1970 as NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Legal Momentum is the nation’s oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls. www.legalmomentum.org
