Public Counsel - Pro Bono Online

Board Spotlight: Karlene Goller

As Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the Los Angeles Times and Senior Counsel/West Coast Media for the Tribune Company, Karlene Goller fights daily to protect and defend rights and liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. As the new Chairperson of Public Counsel’s Board of Directors, Goller brings that same zeal to her leadership of the world’s largest pro bono public interest law firm and its mission of ensuring equal access to justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.

She galvanized Public Counsel staff, board members and clients with her very first speech at the annual board retreat, setting the tone for her upcoming year as Chairperson. “A good lawyer can take a struggling person and help her triumph over a slumlord or a bureaucrat, can secure housing or benefits that our society provides and yet infuriatingly withholds. Without that lawyer, she might sink beneath the complexity of immigration regulations or the depressing crush of Section 8 rules. With that lawyer, she might find an apartment, grab ahold of residency, protect her children, raise a family, become an American. In that moment, a life is changed and a nation elevated. That is what moves me to support Public Counsel and thrills me to lead it.”

In addition to her responsibilities with the Los Angeles Times, Goller also serves as First Amendment counsel for the Tribune’s other California newspapers including Costa Mesa Daily Pilot, Glendale News-Press, Huntington Beach Independent, Burbank Leader, Foothill Leader, La Canada Valley Sun and the La Crescenta Valley Sun. She is also responsible for all aspects of newsroom counseling and litigation as well as intellectual property matters.

“If her opening salvo is any indication, we’re looking forward to an absolutely amazing year of leadership with Karlene at the helm,” says David Johnson, Public Counsel’s outgoing board president. “Karlene has the highest integrity and the greatest concern for the poor. I expect that she will lead Public Counsel to a new level of service to those most in need.”

“Karlene is a personal friend, and I have always enjoyed her humor and warmth. She has a gift for making you feel like the only person in the room when she’s talking to you,” says Dan Grunfeld, Public Counsel’s president and CEO. “I also know her as a community leader, and I’m excited to work under her direction this year. Her intellect, compassion and work ethic are a formidable combination that I expect will serve our clients and our community very well.”

Goller joined the Board of Directors in 1998, was elected to the Executive Committee in 1999, and has served as an officer of the Board for the last three years. During that time she has seen the impact of Public Counsel’s work grow. “Each success for a Public Counsel client is a triumph, and each builds on the next. Together, they form an expanding web of benevolent influence, an architecture of good work and progress. She added, “…any good vision of our purpose must be built on the idea that brought us this far – that in this privileged city, those of us who have must give to those who don’t. Those of us who are lawyers must help those who are not and who cannot otherwise afford one.”