Commitment to a mission as audacious as creating a fairer justice system takes an equally audacious team. We’re proud to have some of the most innovative, talented, and compassionate leaders guiding our organization.
By providing free bail assistance to those in need, we restore the presumption of innocence, reunite families, and gather evidence for change.
Taking money out of justice
By advocating for better policies, we seek to take money out of justice and to create a pretrial system that is more just, equitable, and humane.
The Bail Project strives for a more perfect justice system, one that works for all people no matter their race or wealth.
LEADING THE WAY
As the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gaspar leads the strategic planning, organizational management, programmatic development, external affairs, and fundraising activities for the organization. Mr. Gaspar joined The Bail Project as a Bail Disruptor shortly after the organization’s launch and quickly rose through the ranks to become an Operations Manager, Regional Director, and eventually the National Director of Operations. A formerly incarcerated individual directly affected by the cash bail system, Mr. Gaspar earned his GED and bachelor’s degree and studied law while in prison, won his appeal, and was released 11 years early. Building upon his direct lived experience in the criminal justice system and fulfilling his commitment to social justice, he dedicates his spare time to efforts that help stabilize lives by mentoring young people and facilitating re-entry for people returning from incarceration. He has earned several certifications including an Offender Workforce Development Specialist certification from the National Institute of Corrections, the highest-level certification in Lean Six Sigma, and certifications in Results Based Accountability (RBA) and Trauma-Informed Community Building. Mr. Gaspar was recently selected for the Galaxy Gives Leadership program and is a graduate of JustLeadership USA’s Leading with Conviction program. A proud Mexican-American, husband, father of five, and grandfather, Mr. Gaspar’s work with The Bail Project is an embodiment of his hope for a brighter future, where better systems of justice are possible.
MEET THE BOARD
We are so grateful to have a board made up of passionate experts with a variety of experiences that provide organizational oversight and governance with intentionality around values and longterm vision.
Robin Steinberg is the founder of the Bail Project and three other high-impact organizations: the Bronx Defenders, the Bronx Freedom Fund, and Still She Rises. In 2017, Steinberg launched the Bail Project, modeled on the success of the Bronx Freedom Fund, a community bail fund started by Steinberg and David Feige in 2007 to support clients of the Bronx Defenders. Prior to her tenure at the Bail Project, Steinberg founded and served as the executive director of the Bronx Defenders, a nationally-recognized public defender office known for its pioneering work on holistic defense, which refers to a client-centered and community-based model of legal representation that seeks to address both the underlying causes and collateral impacts of criminal justice involvement. In 2016, Steinberg launched Still She Rises in Oklahoma, which is the first public defender office in the nation dedicated to the representation of mothers in the criminal justice system. Steinberg received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and J.D. from New York University School of Law. She has taught trial advocacy and other courses at Harvard, Columbia, Seton Hall and elsewhere. She has been recognized with the Impact Award by the New York Law Journal, the Service of Justice Award by New York State Defenders Association, and Alumna of the Year by New York University School of Law among other notable achievements. Her publications have appeared in law reviews, policy journals and books, including the Hamishpat Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Yale Law & Policy Review, and Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy. Steinberg is a frequent commentator on criminal justice issues and has contributed opinion pieces to The New York Times, The Marshall Project, and USA Today. She is the author of the forthcoming book “Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection” to be published by Optimism Press. She is currently a Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow of the Criminal Justice Program at UCLA School of Law.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. He is the Director of the Million Book Project, an initiative out of the Yale Law School’s Justice Collaboratory to radically transform the access to literature in prisons. For more than twenty-years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, his latest collection of poetry, Felon, explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record. In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2018 Emerson Fellow at New America and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Brandon Buskey is the Director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, where he has worked since 2012. A major part of his and the project’s work focuses on reforming pretrial justice, including ending excessive pretrial detention and wealth-based detention; guaranteeing a right to counsel for bail hearings; and limiting restrictive conditions of release like GPS monitoring and drug testing. Prior to the ACLU, Brandon worked at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, representing individuals on death row and children sentenced to die in prison. He is a 2006 honors graduate of New York University Law School, where he was a Root-Tilden Kern and AnBryce Scholar. Following law school he clerked for the Honorable Janet C. Hall of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. He received his B.A. from North Carolina State University.
Lisa Gersh was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of Alexander Wang, a fashion brand based in New York City. Prior to Alexander Wang, Ms. Gersh had served as the CEO of Goop, Inc. and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. Ms. Gersh has extensive experience in media, including serving as President of Strategic Initiatives at NBC, serving as the Managing Director of the Weather Channel Companies for NBC Universal, and co-founding Oxygen Media. While at NBC Universal, she also pioneered the creation of the company’s groundbreaking Education Nation platform. A graduate of the State University of New York Binghamton, Ms. Gersh holds a law degree from Rutgers Law School and began her career in law, first as an attorney with Debevoise & Plimpton, before co-founding the New York law firm, Friedman Kaplan & Seiler LLP.
Zach Herz-Roiphe was The Bail Project’s Chief Financial Officer from 2018 to 2021. Zach also worked previously with TBP CEO Robin Steinberg to help establish Still She Rises, Tulsa, the first public defender office in the country dedicated exclusively to the representation of women. He is currently Vice President of Business Operations at Applecart, a Series B marketing technology firm. Previously, he held roles at New Mountain Capital, a private investment firm with over $30 billion in assets under management, and Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm. Zach received a BA from Yale University and lives in New York.
Lili Lynton is the co-founder and operating partner of The Dinex Group, which manages 17 Daniel Boulud branded restaurants. She previously co-founded Telebank, an Internet bank sold to E*Trade in 1999. Lili serves on the boards of East Harlem Tutorial Program and the four New Visions charter high schools in the Bronx. Lili is a member of the Advisory Council of The Hamilton Project, a division of Brookings which develops proposals for a more equitable and robust U.S. economy.
Michael E. Novogratz is the CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners and chair of the board of The Bail Project. Mike was formerly a principal and a member of the board of directors of Fortress Investment Group LLC and Chief Investment Officer of the Fortress Macro Fund. He is founder and Board Chairmen of Beat the Streets, a non-profit organization which builds wrestling programs in New York City public schools, the Honorary Chairman of USA Wrestling Foundation and Chairman of The Friends of the Hudson River Park. Additionally, he serves on the board of the NYU Langone Medical Center, Vita Sports Partners, the Princeton Varsity Club, the Jazz Foundation of America, and is a former board member of the Acumen Fund. Mike received his B.A. from Princeton University and served as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army.
Josh Riddick (he/him/his) is a community organizer and justice advocate based in Indianapolis. Since moving to the city, he has served as a pastor, racial equity trainer, and civic dialogue facilitator, and now organizes with the LiveFree Indiana. His work centers on building models of public safety that move beyond carceral and law enforcement responses. In addition to his organizing, Josh leads messaging and communications initiatives aimed at reducing the impact of political misinformation and disinformation on Black men. He earned his masters degree in Religious Education and Leadership from Rochester University in 2022. Across all his roles, Josh is guided by the intersections of identity, spirituality, and justice, and by a deep commitment to developing emerging Black leaders.
Vincent Southerland is the inaugural Executive Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU Law. Prior to joining NYU Law, Vincent worked as an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the Federal Defenders for the Southern District of New York. He spent seven years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where, as senior counsel, he litigated civil rights cases and represented people on death row and youth sentenced to life without parole nationwide. A former staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders, Vincent began his career as a law clerk to Judges Theodore McKee, of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Louis H. Pollak, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and spent two years as an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. Vincent holds an LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center, a J.D. from Temple University School of Law and received his B.A. from University of Connecticut.
Advancing our vision
through action.
Advocating for Better Policies
By advocating for better policies, we seek to take money out of justice and to create a pretrial system that is more just, equitable, and humane.
Providing Free Bail Assistance
By providing free bail assistance to those in need, we restore the presumption of innocence, reunite families, and gather evidence for change.
A Death Sentence Without Ever Going to Court
A cash amount is all that stands in the way of millions being forced into deadly jails each year.
