Our Team

Seth Schaeffer is a partner at McGuireWoods LLP in the firm’s Antitrust, Trade & Commercial Litigation Department. He focuses his practice primarily on consumer financial services and antitrust litigation. Seth also helps oversee the firm’s provision of pro bono legal services in connection with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Law Clinic. He has served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for St. Mary’s Episcopal School and Senior Warden of the Vestry of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Seth also has chaired the St. Mary’s CARITAS outreach program, which provides temporary shelter for Richmond’s homeless population. He has served on both the GRBF Board and its Executive Committee for multiple terms.

Brent Timberlake is Vice President and Chief Counsel of Capital One’s Card Litigation, Subpoena, and Intake Teams. Brent serves as Immediate Past President of the Legal Information Network for Cancer Board of Directors and is actively involved in a number of pro bono organizations and efforts in the Richmond area. He's served on both the GRBF Board and its Executive Committee.

Allison Held is the Associate General Counsel and Director of the Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) - Richmond at VCU Health System, where she is responsible for the development and execution of MLP’s strategic business plan and leading a team responsible for MLP’s mission of integrating legal assistance into the holistic delivery of patient care. She has significant experience working with community partners on projects to address health disparities and to increase the impact of MLP. Allison and VCU Health have been partners with GRBF on the Wills for Healthcare Heroes clinic, providing wills to hundreds of frontline healthcare worker clients.

Taylor D. Brewer is an attorney at Moran Reeves Conn, where she focuses her practice on the defense of hospitals, physicians, nurses, nursing homes, dentists, and other health care providers. Her work includes medical malpractice defense and administrative matters including state board licensing and credentials. Taylor represents Moran Reeves Conn on Firms In Service Richmond and is the firm’s pro bono contact. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys and is a member of Reveille United Methodist Church.

Melanie Friend is a Partner at CowanGates whose practice focuses on divorce, child custody and visitation, spousal support, child support, adoption, and prenuptial agreements. She is qualified as a guardian ad litem for children. Melanie is also trained to represent parties in the collaborative divorce process. Melanie is Past President of the Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association, serves on the board of the Richmond Bar Association, and a member of the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. American Inn of Court, the Richmond Bar Association, the Chesterfield County Bar Association, the Metro Richmond Family Law Bar Association, and the Family Law Section of the Virginia State Bar.

Erin Whaley is a partner at Troutman Pepper where she represents healthcare providers, payers, and health IT vendors on the full spectrum of legal issues they confront on a daily basis. Erin serves as the Pro Bono Partner for Troutman Pepper’s Richmond office where she encourages and coordinates office-wide participation in pro bono efforts. She is also the Chairperson of the Rural Education Foundation Board of Trustees and serves on the Board of Directors of the Preemie Parent Alliance.

Chris Jones is Counsel at Sands Anderson where he practices in Cybersecurity & Technology, Litigation, and Product Liability. He has worked with corporations of all sizes in complex litigation and helping his clients avoid litigation, via risk management. He has served on the nonprofit board of CodeVA, after helping them with their pro bono legal needs via GRBF’s Pro Bono Clearinghouse.

Sharon Choi Stuart is the founder of Stuart Law Firm, LLC, a consumer debtor bankruptcy boutique law firm. She has been practicing bankruptcy law since 2001. Sharon is admitted to the Virginia Supreme Court, the US District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia, and the US Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Virginia. Sharon is part of the Richmond Bar Association/Virginia State Bar (Bankruptcy Section) and is a member and past president of the Metro Richmond Women’s Bar Association. She has been named 2015 and 2016 Legal Elite for her bankruptcy work and was honored with the Influential Women of Virginia award. Sharon has served on both the GRBF Board and its Executive Committee for multiple terms.

Dan Bloor is Associate General Counsel for CarMax and Assistant Vice President of its Store Operations Litigation Team, which manages all of CarMax’s consumer and business litigation. Dan initiated and has lead the CarMax legal department’s pro bono efforts and sits on the department’s pro bono committee.

Bud previously served as chair of Hirschler’s highly-regarded trial practice. He has been blessed with more than 40 years of wonderful opportunities to serve deserving clients in federal and state courts in Virginia and nationwide, the Southern District of New York, and the Virginia Supreme Court. He has represented clients in matters as diverse as securities litigation and arbitration, products liability, medical and professional malpractice, catastrophic personal/brain injury, wrongful death, employment law, estate, and trust litigation, land use litigation, savings and loan institution failures, law firm and physician practice group split-ups, public utility regulatory proceedings, tax litigation, shareholder oppression/corporate governance matters, state agency professional licensing hearings and white-collar crime. These matters have often involved very substantial monetary amounts at issue.

Henry Willett is a litigation partner Christian & Barton. He represents clients in litigation involving healthcare-related matters, the enforcement of non-compete and non-solicitation agreements, intellectual property matters, products liability claims, business and construction disputes, professional malpractice claims, and financial services disputes. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar Council, a past chair of the Litigation Section of the Bar Association of the City of Richmond, and chair of his firm’s Associate Training and Evaluation Committee.

Noopur Garg serves as Senior Counsel in Securities, M&A, and Project Development for Dominion Energy, where she focuses on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures related to the regulated and merchant assets of the company and in particular, leading the negotiations supporting the acquisition of solar photovoltaic projects both in the Commonwealth of Virginia and nationwide. Noopur also represents Dominion on Firms In Service Richmond and serves as the law department’s pro bono liaison.

Ms. Warner’s practice focuses on finance, corporate transactions, and real estate. The majority of her practice consists of assisting banks and certified development companies making commercial loans and government-guaranteed SBA 7A and 504 loans. Sarah is an SBA 504 Designated Attorney. She has been a volunteer for the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation’s Eviction Diversion Program since August 2019 and now serves on the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation’s Board of Directors and is the Triage Co-Champion for Eviction Diversion. Sarah lives in Richmond with her husband and two daughters. An avid dog lover, you can sometimes find her rescue dog, Aida, providing legal support from the floor of Sarah’s office. You can also find Sarah running the roads and riverside trails of RVA.

Ms. Davis is a partner in the Labor and Employment Group. She focuses her practice on advising management in all areas of labor and employment law. She works across industries ranging from health care and higher education to manufacturing and golf to understand the particular needs of her clients in these industries. She regularly represents employers in state and federal courts in the areas of discrimination, fair labor standards, family and medical leave, wrongful discharge, covenants not to compete, breaches of employment contracts, as well as other state and federal employment issues. She counsels and represents clients in defense of EEOC charges and DOL investigations.

Sean Beard is an Assistant General Counsel at Altria Client Services, where he leads the group that negotiates and manages all contracts for the company and its affiliates related to the purchase of assets, goods, and services. Sean had extensive experience in private practice at Hunton & Williams representing Fortune 500 companies in acquisitions and finance transactions, and he has served on several nonprofit Boards, including the Historic Richmond Foundation and SCAN. Sean has volunteered for GRBF’s Pro Bono Clearinghouse to assist nonprofits with their legal needs.

Judge Hughes retired from the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond with over 33 years of judicial experience. First serving as a Judge of the General District Court, Manchester Division, he joined the Circuit Bench in 1984. On the Circuit Court, Judge Hughes heard only civil cases. He was well known for his depth of experience in Virginia law, Virginia procedure, and evidence. Judge Hughes has presided over thousands of jury trials, including personal injury, business, commercial, and medical malpractice. The Chief Justice appointed Judge Hughes to the Committee on Virginia Model Jury Instructions which updates jury instructions as new cases are decided each year. Before his election to the bench, Judge Hughes was in private practice specializing in personal injury and domestic relations. He was a founding member of the Richmond firm of Chambliss, Cunningham, Hughes, and Macbeth. In addition to mediating and sitting by designation, Judge Hughes enjoys his cattle farm in Palmyra.

Crista Gantz is the Virginia State Bar (VSB) director of Access to Legal Services. In this role she develops, promotes, and coordinates the VSB’s pro bono and access to justice initiatives. She oversees the VSB Standing Committee on Access to Legal Services, a statewide access to justice body which encourages participation in pro bono and addresses issues concerning legal representation of individuals who cannot afford counsel or are otherwise underserved. She is also a member of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission and the state administrator for Virginia Free Legal Answers. Ms. Gantz received her law degree from the University of Richmond and her undergraduate degree from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Ashley Davis is an attorney in the Richmond, Virginia office of Allen & Allen. She is a legal strategist and litigator who focuses her practice on complex litigation, products liability, foodborne illness, sexual assault, federal litigation, and appellate practice. Ashley is an adjunct professor teaching trial advocacy at the University of Richmond’s T. C. Williams School of Law, and a former instructor of Legal Research and Writing for the Paralegal Studies program at VCU. She is a member of the Boyd-Graves Conference of the Virginia State Bar and serves on the Board of Governors of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association (VTLA). She is the former chair of the pro bono committees of the Richmond Bar Association and the VTLA. Ashley was recently named as an Influential Woman of Law by Virginia Lawyers Weekly. She is also honored to be listed as one of the Viriginia Super Lawyers, and as one of the Best Lawyers in America – “Ones to Watch,” in 2022. Before attending law school, Ashley lived and worked as an archaeologist in Mexico and the Caribbean. She is a fluent Spanish-speaker.

Christina Mastroianni Christina Mastroianni is the Vice President of Community Engagement and Resource Development at ChamberRVA. In this role, she provides leadership for strategic program development and sponsorship efforts at ChamberRVA. A natural system builder, Christina thrives on every opportunity to bring people and organizations together to create lasting, positive change. Prior to joining the Chamber, Christina served as Vice President of Civic Engagement at the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond. Her work included developing and scaling initiatives dedicated to supporting volunteerism and civic engagement. Before than she managed operations, communications, and outreach for the City of Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building. Christina earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and her Master’s in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center of Government. A lifelong city dweller (seven cities in all!), she can be found spending time porch sitting in her family’s Church Hill neighborhood or getting her hands dirty in her community garden plot.

Larry Mulligan is the Chief Operating Officer for Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity, where he is responsible for oversight of ReStore, as well as Construction and Homeowner Services, in addition to his duties in Finance and Administration. Larry has worked in the nonprofit sector since 2015, after spending years providing consulting services to nonprofits. He has deep experience in Finance and operations oversight, in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.

Leesa W. Gregory is Associate General Counsel at Zoot Enterprises, Inc., a Bozeman, MT-based financial services software company. Her practice focuses on business transactions, employment law, and intellectual property protection, but she has also assisted in real estate transactions, liquor licensing, and product liability. She is currently a trustee with a local foundation, a member of the Academic Excellence Committee for Cristo Rey High School, and has served on the board of Trinity Episcopal School and various other Bozeman schools. She is licensed to practice law in Montana and Virginia.