Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director
Alessandra Soler Meetze came to the ACLU of Arizona as Executive Director in February 2006. She brings nearly eight years of ACLU experience to Arizona, and is the first Latina to head the statewide civil liberties organization. She served as Communications Director of the ACLU’s fifth largest affiliate in Florida, where she was responsible for spearheading statewide public education campaigns. Before joining the ACLU, Meetze worked as a reporter for The Miami Herald, where she covered local government, business, crime and education. She also worked for a brief period at the Roanoke Times in Virginia. Meetze, who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism, and a minor in Latin American Studies.

Dan Pochoda, Legal Director
Daniel Pochoda comes to the ACLU after ten years of private practice focusing on civil rights and racial discrimination matters. From 1990 through 1996, he served as Special Master for the U.S. District Court in three cases involving constitutional challenges to conditions of confinement in the Arizona prison system. He also was adjunct professor in 2001 at Arizona State University’s School of Justice and Social Inquiry. Prior to relocating to Arizona, Pochoda served as an Associate Professor at the City University of New York School of Law, a position he held from 1986 through 1995. In addition, he taught constitutional law at CUNY’s Center for Urban Legal Studies from 1982 through 1985.  He served as Special Counsel to the New York City Board of Correction and as a staff attorney for the New York City Legal Aid Society Prisoner’s Rights Project, arguing numerous cases at the trial and appellate levels, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. He began his legal career with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Pochoda received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College.

Annie Lai, Racial Justice Fellow
Annie, who started working for the ACLU-AZ, on September 16, graduated cum laude in May 2006 from the New York University School of Law.  She has extensive experience working in the public interest, both domestically and abroad.  At NYU, where she was a Root Tilden Kern Public Interest Law Scholar, she participated in the Immigrant Rights Clinic and the International Human Rights Clinic.  As a clinic student, she represented clients in removal proceedings and conducted litigation, research and policy analysis to challenge the use of state and local law enforcement resources to enforce immigration law.  She also created a database for a Pakistani community organization to document civil rights and civil liberties violations after 9/11.  In the summers,  Annie worked at the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she presented training workshops on accountability mechanisms for human rights violations and in The Hague, Netherlands, where she assisted womens' rights NGOs to develop war crimes investigations procedures for the International Criminal Court.  In addition, she interned with the Brennan Center for Justice, where she researched legal mechanisms for state governors to restore voting rights to persons with prior felony convictions.  Upon completing her J.D., Annie received the Vanderbilt Medal for outstanding leadership and contributions to the law school.

After graduation, Annie worked as a Staff Attorney at the Urban Justice Center Community Development Project, managing a new line of legal services to expand access to healthcare for uninsured immigrant workers.  She served as a law clerk to the Honorable James C. Francis IV in the Southern District of New York.

Aside from her immigration and human rights work, Annie has substantial experience working closely with Black, Latino, and Asian community organizations on a range of social and economic justices.  Annie graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a B.A. in Public Policy Studies.  She is admitted to practice law in New York.  She is conversational in Mandarin Chinese and has basic knowledge of Spanish and French.  She recently completed an intensive Spanish immersion program in Mexico.

Jayne Polizzi, Development Director
Jayne previously served as our Development Coordinator, where she was responsible for creating donor materials, maintaining donor files, editing and designing our newsletter and membership brochure, and planning our annual event. Prior to joining the ACLU of Arizona in 2007, Jayne worked as the Deputy Finance Director for the Arizona Together Prop 107 Campaign, where she prepared direct mail pieces, assembled donor briefings, coordinated house parties and maintained the organization’s extensive donor mailing list. Arizona Proposition 107 was a proposed same-sex marriage ban, put before voters by ballot initiative in the 2006 General Election. Jayne has a master’s degree in social work from ASU with a focus on policy and administration. She has devoted countless hours to volunteering with local community groups, including the United Way, where she served on a grant review panel. In addition, her extensive grant writing experience involved work with the Lesbian Health Project, the Gill Foundation and Public Welfare Foundation.

Mary Lunetta, Community Organizer
Mary Lunetta previously worked as the outreach coordinator for the Education Equity Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area where she developed outreach materials and served as a liaison for students, teachers and parents seeking to reform public schools in California. Before joining the Lawyers' Committee, Mary worked in the organizing department of the ACLU of Northern California, where she was responsible for mobilizing the group's 22 volunteer-run chapters. While at the ACLU, she coordinated volunteer programs and implemented statewide civil liberties campaigns on issues such as reproductive freedom, habeas corpus and police accountability. She also coordinated lobby visits, phone banks and get-out-the-vote activities in conjunction with ACLU chapter leaders.  Mary previously served as a board member of the Santa Cruz Chapter of the ACLU, and was the former president of the ACLU student club at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she received her bachelor's degree in community studies.

Lindsay Nordstrom, Office Manager
Lindsay Nordstrom began her career at the ACLU of Arizona in February 2005. Prior to joining the staff, Lindsay was an intern with our Development Department, where she assisted in planning major donor events and campaigns.  She also helped write press releases, brochures and content for the ACLU of Arizona Web site. Lindsay previously worked as a claims clerk with Health Choice Arizona. She has a bachelor’s degree in Communications from ASU, where she also minored in English Literature.   As office coordinator, Lindsay is responsible for general bookkeeping and account management, as well as other duties related to human resources.  

Addy Bareiss, Program Coordinator
Addy Bareiss is the new Program Coordinator responsible for coordinating the ACLU of Arizona’s statewide campaign advocating for comprehensive sexuality education and seeking to end the use of publicly-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which censor vital health information from teens. She will be facilitating, staffing and supporting the Coalition for Healthy Arizona Teens, whose members are pressing for change to current sex education policies in the state of Arizona.

Named Planned Parenthood Arizona’s Volunteer of the Year in 2007, Addy has made defense of women’s reproductive freedom one of her major priorities in life – both professionally and personally.  She worked as the Medical Department Coordinator at Planned Parenthood Arizona and has been serving as a health center volunteer for the past year. She also served as the co-founder of PPAZ’s Young Leaders Steering Committee, which was kicked-off in 2006 in an attempt to reach out to young professionals and empower them to become champions of healthy sexual attitudes.

Before joining the ACLU, Addy served as a supply chain specialist at Boeing and a women’s studies instructor at Kansas State University. She received her MBA from Kansas State University and her bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University. 

Addy will be working as Program Coordinator at the ACLU on a part-time basis, while pursuing her Ph.D in women and gender studies at Arizona State University.

Charis Elliott, Intake Coordinator
Charis is currently a senior at Arizona State University, majoring in political science and global studies. She is currently completing an independent study research project on Fair Trade in Nicaragua. Aside from this research project, she's also actively involved in an on-campus group called Women Beyond Borders, which works to empower women of color, including Latinas and members of the Navajo Nation. She has received a grant from the ASU Edson Foundation for an entrepreneurial venture called Las Otras Hermanas, which aims to utilize Fair Trade practices and principles working in solidarity with women producers in Juárez, Mexico to create economic alternatives built on justice, transparency and respect.  In fact, she was recently recognized by the ASU Commission on the Status of Women for her work with Las Otras Hermanas. As Intake Coordinator, Charis will be responding to requests for ACLU legal assistance, conducting research on issues that impact civil liberties and coordinating volunteers to assist with various necessary tasks within our Legal Department.