Lianne C. Scherr

Lianne C. Scherr, L.C.S.W., is a licensed clinical social worker with a Masters Degree from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. A nationally recognized sentencing expert over the past 35 years, Ms. Scherr has generated novel arguments for sentencing departures and creative alternatives to incarceration. Her groundbreaking work has provided defense attorneys opportunities to place an accused's background within a proper psychological context--an invaluable contribution towards presenting a human picture of individual defendants. She has been highly successful in humanizing the defendant and explaining to a sentencing judge why a defendant committed the crime that he or she did if a plea of guilty was entered. This has led to individuals receiving lower sentences than would otherwise reasonably be expected.

Read an interview with Lianne Scherr in "The Champion."

J. Michael Henderson

J. Michael Henderson has over 23 years of experience working with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). While employed by the BOP, Mr. Henderson served as the former Regional Designator for the Western Region of the United States. He served in this capacity in the early '90s and again from 1997 until his retirement in 2000. In that capacity, his duties included oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons classification of newly sentenced federal offenders in the western part of the United States. Mr. Henderson also worked at several prisons in jobs ranging from administrative to high security. He helped revise and implement BOP policies in the areas of Central Inmate Monitoring and Designations, and also provided staff training in these areas. During his career, Mr. Henderson has received numerous awards and recognition for his work. Noteworthy awards include an annual award from the inmate branch of the NAACP at FPC Allenwood and the Bureau of Prisons' National Stanford Bates Award for outstanding contributions to improved Case Management. Mr. Henderson is the co-author of Federal Prison Guidebook.

Saundra Muncy

Saundra Muncy is the firm's Paralegal. She is in the San Francisco area office. She comes to the firm from a background in ombudsman and grievance counseling services within the Virginia Department of Corrections, where she served as the Human Rights Advocate for several medium/maximum security penitentiaries. She holds a degree in Business Administration and has furthered her education focusing on criminal justice and psychology. She has been a member of the firm since 1997.

Deborah Bezilla

Deborah Bezilla is the Administrative Assistant for the firm. She is in the Pennsylvania office. She holds degrees in Accounting and History as well as a Paralegal Certificate from the Pennsylvania State University. She has been with the firm for more than 32 years.

Jie "Hai Lin" Zheng

Jie "Hai Lin" Zheng is the China Coordinator for Alan Ellis as Foreign Legal Counsel to the Longan Law Firm of the Peoples Republic of China. Ms. Zheng works out of both the San Francisco and Shanghai offices. She is multilingual and fluent in several languages including Mandarin, English, Shanghainese and Hangzhounese. Maintaining residences in both San Francisco and Shanghai, Ms. Zheng partners with her husband, Alan Ellis, a former Fulbright Visiting Professor of Law, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Law. At their San Francisco home in May of 2007, she and Mr. Ellis hosted a delegation of Chinese Supreme Peoples' Court judges who were visiting the United States on a comparative law tour.