Leadership

The MLTF is led by a volunteer Steering Committee made up of members and managed by a part-time executive director.

Last updated December 29, 2021.

Steering Committee

CHAIR

Jeff Lake

Jeff is an attorney in private practice with Carpenter and Mayfield in San Jose, California. Jeff has been a member of the NLG since 1985 and a member of the MLTF for almost as long. He is currently chair of the MLTF and an editor of its quarterly journal, On Watch. Jeff is also active with the San Jose Peace and Justice Center.

  • He/him/his
  • San Jose, CA

VICE CHAIR

Aaron Frishberg

Aaron joined the Military Law Task Force over 35 years ago, while at New York Law School, where he participated in organizing a seminar to support resistance to the Jimmy Carter draft registration initiative, a bellicose response to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. He has relied on the support of the network of MLTF advocates and attorneys in his case work, never being fully immersed personally in any aspect of military law. He helped organize a training on military counseling in New York which became the foundation for a New York City chapter NLG Military Law Committee.

  • He/him/his
  • New York, NY

SECRETARY

Dan Mayfield

Dan is a criminal defense lawyer in San Jose CA . Before going into private practice he was an attorney with the Center for Veterans Rights in Los Angeles and the American G.I Forum in San Jose.

  • He/him/his
  • San Jose, CA

TREASURER

Libby Frank

Libby is a counter recruitment activist in Chicago working with Veterans for Peace and other peace groups to demilitarize the public schools. She is trained as an Accredited Claims Agent and worked for several years helping veterans seek discharge upgrades. She is also on the steering committee of the National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth.

  • She/her/hers
  • Chicago, IL

James M. Branum

James is a solo-practice attorney who practices primarily in defending military servicemembers in courts-martial, administrative boards and related matters.  He is a past MLTF co-chair and currently volunteers in writing content for On Watch and in teaching CLE seminars.  

In his legal activism work, James has worked with many different organizations including Courage to Resist, GI RIghts Network, Civilian Medical Resource Network. Center on Conscience and War and About Face (formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against the War).
James also serves as an Interfaith Minister with the Oklahoma Objector Community, a religious humanist congregation. 

Ed Hasbrouck

Edward Hasbrouck joined the MLTF in the early 1980s, when he was an organizer with the National Resistance Committee and an editor of Resistance News. In 1983-1984, he “served” 4-1/2 months in a Federal prison camp for refusing to register with the Selective Service System. In 2019, he was the only draft resister invited to testify before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. In 2021, he received a Social Courage Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association “for exemplifying courage and honor in speaking truth to power”. His Web site is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date resources about the draft, draft registration, and draft resistance. Edward is a member of the War Resisters League and a legal worker for a human rights project. As an investigative journalist and independent scholar, he has extensive experience with both FOIA and the Privacy Act.

Jane Kaplan

My military law training began in 2005 when I attended a training presented by Bay Area Military Law Panel of the San Francisco NLG chapter. Since then I have represented active duty service members as part of my pro bono practice. Most of my cases involve medical disability discharges. I continue to be a member of BAMLP and have presented military law trainings to law students and attorneys. I am also a steering committee member and former chair of the Trauma Assessment Program.

  • She/her
  • Kensington, CA

Jim Klimaski

Jim was a co-founder of the MLTF and is the principal in the law firm Klimaski and Associates, P.C. located in Washington, DC. He practices in the fields of Military Law, Employment Law, Security Clearances and Freedom of Information and Privacy Law.

  • Silver Spring, MD

Chris Lombardi

Author of I Ain’t Marching Anymore: Dissenters, Deserters and Objector to America’s Wars (New Press, 2020). Was the GI Advocacy Coordinator for Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) in the 1990s, and midwifed the short-lived Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel. Ever since, military issues have dominated my journalistic career. Also on the board of Center on Conscience and War.

Siri Margerin

Siri works with About Face Veterans Against the War, the GI Rights Hotline, Before Enlisting, NNOMY and others to expose resist and dismantle militarism and its attendant horrors.


Matthew Rinaldi

Born to an Italian-American family in Brooklyn in 1947, Matt was an activist in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, an organizer in the anti-war GI coffeehouse projects during the Vietnam War, and a truck driver in Teamsters for a Democratic Union before going to law school. With the MLTF, he currently represents 17 year old recruits who want to get released from the military. (Yes, there are child soldiers in the USA.) Matthew has been a member of the NLG since 1980 and was on the Executive Board of the SF Bay Area chapter for a decade.

  • Use name
  • Albany, CA

STAFF

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

photo of Kathleen Gilberd

Kathleen Gilberd

Kathleen (“Kathy”) is a legal worker focusing in the areas of military administrative law and discharge review. She serves on the board of directors of the national GI Rights Network. She is the author (with Majorie Cohn) of Rules of Disengagement: the Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, and was also a contributing author in Clark Boardman Callahan’s Sexual Orientation and the Law. She is a frequent contributor to MLTF’s quarterly journal, On Watch, as well as an editor for the publication.

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