Staff

Melissa Rodgers
Directing Attorney

Melissa Rodgers has been the Directing Attorney of the Child Care Law Center since September 1, 2010. From 2008 to 2010, Ms. Rodgers was the Associate Director of the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Berkeley CHEFS) and the Director of CHEFS' Health Security work. At Berkeley CHEFS, Ms. Rodgers developed a research-based policy agenda for health care reform and co-authored policy reports on current issues in health care reform. She also filed a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of two San Francisco restaurants in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. City and County of San Francisco.

Previously, Ms. Rodgers was a Directing Attorney at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County and the Director of Legal Aid's Health Consumer Center, a Health Consumer Alliance partner organization. While there, she represented clients on issues including coverage eligibility, access to care, and medical debt; participated in local efforts to expand coverage to the uninsured and statewide efforts to preserve access to health care for low-income populations; and engaged in litigation involving the automation of Medi-Cal benefits. She helped start Legal Aid's Family Advocacy Program, a medical-legal partnership with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford and the Ravenswood Family Health Center in East Palo Alto that aims to improve health outcomes for low-income pediatric patients through advocacy. Ms. Rodgers also helped start the San Mateo County Preemie Project, a collaborative focused on access to services for premature infants.

Ms. Rodgers has taught courses to law and medical students together, both at Stanford and at Berkeley. She serves on the Board of the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART), which oversees www.CalHospitalCompare.org. Ms. Rodgers received her master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her law degree from Harvard Law School.

 

Claire Ramsey
Staff Attorney

Claire Ramsey has been working at the Child Care Law Center since 2006. She began as an Equal Justice Fellow and focused on infant-toddler care issues. After her fellowship ended, she continued on as a staff attorney working on disability issues and child care. She is part of a project called the Child Care Inclusion Challenge Project which is an interdisciplinary collaboration working to improve access to child care for children with disabilities and special health care needs. Claire writes and trains extensively on the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Claire graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in 2006.