Michele S. Warman

Board Vice Chair and Chair Elect.
Experienced Practitioner in Residence, Columbia Law School

Michele S. Warman currently serves as experienced practitioner in residence for the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative at Columbia Law School.

Previously, Ms. Warman served as executive vice president, chief operating officer, general counsel, and secretary of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She led the foundation’s overall operations and legal affairs, including finance, grant management, and human resources, and was secretary to the Board of Trustees. Ms. Warman worked closely with the foundation’s president, board, and staff in the day-to-day management of the foundation and in setting overall direction.

Ms. Warman received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1982, where she received the M. Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, the university’s highest undergraduate distinction; a master’s degree from the University of Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar; and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Prior to joining the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 1999, Ms. Warman was an associate at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell and a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit. At Davis Polk, she represented Fortune 500 companies in litigation and investigative matters and provided counsel to corporate boards. In her pro bono practice, she represented civil rights groups in amici briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and indigent clients in litigation disputes. Ms. Warman has been honored as one of New York’s Outstanding Women of the Bar by the New York County Lawyers’ Association.

Ms. Warman is a board member of Princeton University’s Center for Jewish Life, and a past member of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs’ Advisory Council and Princeton’s Alumni Council’s Executive Committee and Committee on Academic Programs. She serves on a variety of fellowship selection panels, including the Rhodes Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholars, and Schmidt Science Fellows, and on the Rhodes Development Committee. Ms. Warman is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC, Bars.

Judith E. Leonard

Trustee.

Judith Leonard served as general counsel of the Smithsonian Institution from 2009 to 2023, following a decade as vice president of legal affairs and general counsel of the University of Arizona. At the Smithsonian, Ms. Leonard served as the principal legal advisor to the Board of Regents, the secretary, and other officials, and directed the management of all legal matters relevant to the operations of the Smithsonian. These responsibilities included coordination with the Department of Justice on litigation matters; representation in administrative proceedings, engagement, and management of outside counsel; and management of the team of lawyers and support staff who provide the legal advice and representation to the entire Smithsonian. Ms. Leonard also provided legal advice to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and its trustees.

Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Ms. Leonard served as the vice president for legal affairs and general counsel at the University of Arizona from 1998 until 2009. In that role, she served as principal legal advisor, directed and coordinated all legal matters, advised on policy and compliance, served as a member of the university president’s cabinet, and supervised the legal department. Ms. Leonard also was an adjunct associate professor in the College of Education’s Higher Education Leadership graduate degree program.

Ms. Leonard previously spent 10 years in Washington, DC, as an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education and as general counsel of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Executive Office of the President. She served as assistant attorney general in Arizona (1990-1991) and as associate university counsel at the University of North Carolina (1983-1990), where she also lectured in the schools of business, medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, and pharmacy.

In 2014, Ms. Leonard was elected to the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly works to clarify, modernize, and improve the law. She served on the American Bar Association’s Legal Education Accreditation Committee from 2015 through 2018 and remains active in the National Association of College and University Attorneys and the Association of Corporate Counsel. She is an active member of the Women’s Advisory Board of the Girl Scouts of the Nation’s Capital and of the Washington, DC, chapter of the International Women’s Forum.

Ms. Leonard earned her Juris Doctor and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.

Ajay K. Mehrotra

Trustee.
Research Professor and Former Executive Director, American Bar Foundation

Dr. Ajay K. Mehrotra is a research professor at the American Bar Foundation (ABF), where he formerly served as the executive director. The Chicago-based, independent, nonprofit research institute focuses on the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law, legal institutions, and legal processes. Dr. Mehrotra is also a professor of law at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, and an affiliated professor of history at Northwestern University.

Dr. Mehrotra’s scholarship and teaching focus on legal history and tax law. More generally, his research explores law and political economy in historical and comparative perspective, with a particular focus on tax law and policy. He is the author of Making the Modern American Fiscal State: Law, Politics and the Rise of Progressive Taxation, 1877-1929 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which received the 2014 Best Book award from the U.S. Society for Intellectual History. He is the co-editor (with Isaac William Martin and Monica Prasad) of The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). His writings have also appeared in student-edited law reviews and interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journals including Law & Social Inquiry, Law & History Review, and Law & Society Review. Dr. Mehrotra’s scholarship, teaching, and programmatic efforts have been supported by grants and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the AccessLex Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.

Before joining the ABF and Northwestern, Dr. Mehrotra taught American legal history, federal income tax, taxation of business entities, and tax policy at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He also co-taught strategic tax planning at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor of history at Indiana University and an affiliated faculty member of the Lin & Vincent Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Prior to his time at Indiana University, he was a doctoral fellow at the ABF. After law school and before he embarked on his academic career, Mehrotra was an associate in the structured finance department of the New York offices of J.P. Morgan.

Dr. Mehrotra received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan, his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University, and his doctorate in American history from the University of Chicago.

Charlotte P. Morris

Trustee.
President, Tuskegee University

Dr. Charlotte P. Morris began her current tenure as Tuskegee University’s ninth president on Aug. 1, 2021. Her 30-plus-year tenure at Tuskegee has included numerous leadership and faculty appointments, including having previously served as interim president.

Dr. Morris began her tenure at Tuskegee University in 1984 as a faculty member of the Andrew F. Brimmer College of Business and Information Science. In 1987, she began serving as executive associate/chief of staff to the university president and secretary to the university’s Board of Trustees — duties she faithfully performed for 23 years. During the last eight years in that position, she also served as the director of the university’s Title III program and as chair of the university’s Convocations and Special Events Committee. After concluding her first appointment as interim president, Morris returned to the Brimmer College, where she served as associate dean and professor of management — until she was appointed the college’s interim dean in 2016.

Dr. Morris’ early career experience includes teaching appointments at Trenholm State Community College and Kansas State University. She has also served as program associate for planning, management, and evaluation at Mississippi Valley State University. In 2011, she was appointed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges as a visiting peer review team member.

A native of Kosciusko, Mississippi, Dr. Morris completed a bachelor’s degree in business education at Jackson State University, a master’s degree in business administration and management at Delta State University, and a doctorate in education and business management from Kansas State University. She has completed additional graduate-level coursework at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education’s Institute for Educational Management, higher education administration coursework at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, and summer institutes in curriculum development in higher education.

A resident of Montgomery, Alabama, since 1983, Dr. Morris is a Golden Life Member of the Montgomery Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a member and former president of the Agnes J. Lewis Women’s Club, and a member of the Lilly Missionary Baptist Church where she serves on the usher board, as a Sunday School teacher, and as a member of the missions’ circle. Additionally, she holds/has held membership in the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society in Business, the Golden Key National Honor Society, the National Council of Negro Women, and the American Council on Education.

Dr. Morris’ accolades include membership in Leadership Montgomery’s Class XXIX, receiving Tuskegee University’s Distinguished Administrative Staff Achievement Award and the Service Award from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, being named a Bush Foundation Fellow, and inclusion in the 1992 edition of Who’s Who Worldwide.

Dr. Morris was married to the late Dr. William R. Morris and is the parent of one adult son.