Staff

FarmSTAND / Staff

Meet Our Team

Holly Bainbridge

Staff Attorney

As a Staff Attorney with FarmSTAND, Holly litigates cases to increase transparency in the food system and challenge industrial agricultural practices that harm people, animals, and the environment. She is passionate about using her legal work to support power building in communities impacted by industrial animal agriculture.

Prior to joining FarmSTAND, Holly was a litigator at Animal Legal Defense Fund, where she focused on improving government oversight of industrial animal agriculture. Before that she was an environmental and land use attorney for the State of California and for an international law firm. She began her legal career as a clerk for Judge Marilyn L. Huff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Holly graduated from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and has a B.S. in Agribusiness Economics and Management from the University of Arizona.

Holly lives in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring nature with her family, including rescue dog Billy.

Amal Bouhabib

Senior Staff Attorney

Amal Bouhabib is a Senior Staff Attorney at FarmSTAND, after nearly a decade representing farmworkers throughout the Deep South as an attorney, and later director of, Southern Migrant Legal Services located in Nashville, Tenn. At FarmSTAND, Amal continues to pursue cases that highlight and seek justice for the frontline food workers that feed us, and exploring news ways to create a humane, fair, and accessible food system for all communities.

Prior to her farmworker career, Amal was a litigator at an international law firm in New York, where she was part of the trial team that won a $14 million verdict on behalf of workers from India against a Mississippi corporation, the largest-ever jury verdict in a labor trafficking case. Before going to law school, Amal worked as a journalist in Beirut, Lebanon and as a legal assistant for the Brennan Center for Justice in New York. Amal earned her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Middle East Studies from New York University, and a B.A. in Theology from Georgetown University.

In her (limited) spare time, Amal enjoys the wild nature of Nashville, singing with her musician husband, attending her son's soccer games, and cuddling with their moody cat Bear.

Jessica Culpepper

Co-founder and Executive Director

Jessica Culpepper is the Executive Director of FarmSTAND, leading the organization’s staff and board to fight for a fair food system in courtrooms and communities. Jessica’s 16 year career has been entirely focused on legal advocacy on behalf of farmed animals and communities harmed by industrial animal agribusiness. Her fight for a fair food system began at her alma mater, Warren Wilson College, a work college with a sustainable working farm and garden. Most recently, she was the Director of the Public Justice Food Project where she grew the program from a single staff attorney to a team of eleven organizers, lawyers, and paralegals. As a lawyer, Jessica worked primarily on fighting pollution from factory farms with fenceline communities and advocating for federal and state policy reform to advance fair food systems. Jessica stays deeply tied to the fight for a fair food system in her personal life as well as chair of the board of Socially Responsible Agriculture Project and board member of Warren Wilson College. She loves cooking food from her garden and has a top secret recipe for the world’s best pumpkin pie.

Steph Drain

Organizer, Labor & Environment

As FarmSTAND's Organizer, Labor & Environment, Steph builds partnerships with impacted community members and groups to collaborate on opportunities for legal and organizing projects that challenge the destructive and exploitative factory farming industry. Steph brings over six years of organizing experience as a community organizer, and more recently as the Political Director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Working Families Party. Steph’s vision witnesses the means of production being held by community members, not greedy corporations, and mono-crop monopolies. Steph understands that factory farming corporations are the greatest threat to the working-class struggle globally, as they continue to strangle the supply chain, starving us and poisoning our land, air, and water.   Steph is an avid birder and forager and spends more time outdoors than inside.   Reach Steph at Steph@FarmSTAND.org.

Kelsey Eberly

Senior Staff Attorney

As a Senior Staff Attorney at FarmSTAND, Kelsey engages in strategic litigation and movement-centered advocacy to fight corporate control and expose the abuses in the industrial animal agriculture system. Before joining FarmSTAND, Kelsey was a lecturer and litigator with the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, a policy fellow at the Brooks McCormick, Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, and an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Kelsey specializes in litigation to combat secrecy and increase transparency in the industrial food system—challenging efforts to silence investigations and whistleblowers and advocating for consumers misled by animal agribusinesses’ deceptive marketing. When not working to transform the food system, Kelsey can be found running over the hills and dales of Vermont, listening to investigative journalism podcasts. 

Lori Falcon

Operations and Events Associate

Lori is a lifelong animal advocate and the Operations and Events Associate at FarmSTAND, providing support across FarmSTAND's focus areas. Previously, she worked as the Operations Generalist at Farmed Animal Funders, a funders' learning collaborative dedicated to combatting industrialized animal agriculture. When she's not working, she's likely reading, spending time with her family, or giving too many treats to her rescue dog and cat: Mushu and Kitana.

Nathan Leys

Staff Attorney

Nathan is a staff attorney at FarmSTAND, working on a variety of cases. He previously clerked and served as a legal fellow in the housing unit of a legal aid organization. He enjoys cooking, trying new restaurants, and reading, and pretends to enjoy running.

David Muraskin

Co-founder and Managing Director of Litigation

David is the Managing Director for Litigation at FarmSTAND. He oversees our docket of consumer, worker, environmental, and constitutional claims taking on industrial animal agriculture’s abusive practices. He has been a leading advocate against “Ag-Gag” laws, increasing safety for meatpacking and agricultural workers, and taking on false advertisements that cover up the reality of BigAg. He previously worked at Public Justice and Public Citizen and in private practice as a qui tam attorney. He currently teaches agriculture and environmental law at George Washington University Law School, and has previously taught at Georgetown and Vermont law schools. He is always behind in maintaining his dog’s Instagram account, @FranktheFoxhound.

Aidan O'Shea

Communications Director

Aidan (he/him) is the Communications Director at FarmSTAND, based in Washington, DC. He contributes to FarmSTAND’s communications and base building goals through content creation, management of day-to-day communications needs related to press as well as digital platforms, and collaboration with allies on joint communications projects. He was previously Communications Director at Public Justice, and Senior Digital Communications Strategist at the Alliance for Justice, with a special emphasis in those roles on developing the basis for common messaging across diverse coalitions. He enjoys collecting vinyl, choral singing, and his cat Biscuit.     

Sylvia Regan

Research Paralegal

Sylvia provides paralegal and research support to the FarmSTAND legal team. She also collaborates with the outreach team to communicate and organize around FarmSTAND's legal work. Before joining FarmSTAND, Sylvia worked at the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity to protect people, wildlife, and ecosystems from climate change. In her free time, Sylvia is an amateur potter who likes to create functional dishware for herself, her friends, and her cat.

Ameesha Sampat

Co-founder and Managing Director of Outreach and Organizing

Ameesha is the Managing Director for Outreach and Organizing at FarmSTAND. She oversees our communications and base building strategies, with a strong focus on growing FarmSTAND's relationships with organizations representing communities directly impacted by industrial agriculture. She previously worked at Public Justice, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, and Immigration Equality working in diverse coalitions, digital organizing, and storytelling. Ameesha maintains a multispecies household boasting a cat and a crayfish, and block prints one-of-a-kind bandanas.

Hannah Schwarz

Staff Attorney

Hannah is a staff attorney at FarmSTAND, where she works on a variety of cases. She previously clerked for Judge Manish Shah of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and Judge Roger Gregory of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before law school, she was a newspaper reporter in Upstate New York covering city and county government. She has a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from Yale University. She enjoys trying new recipes and hanging out with her rescue Chiweenie, Hermie.

Skye Walker

Litigation Fellow

Skye is a legal fellow at FarmSTAND and a recent graduate of Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Skye sees this work as uniquely intersectional: she is eager to challenge animal agriculture practices that deteriorate the quality of air, water, and native habitat, exacerbate the climate crisis, and impede good health and economic prosperity of low income and BIPOC communities, family farmers, and workers. Skye has diverse internship and clinical experience in the public interest field and recently concluded a fellowship at the Colorado Attorney General. She loves crafting and painting, spending time outdoors, and traveling to new places.
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