Shane Crary Ross has been CDM’s Deputy Advocacy Director since September 2023. Before joining CDM, Shane was the Director of Investigations at the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s Office of Labor Policy and Standards (OLPS), where she led a team charged with investigating and resolving violations of local worker protection laws. During her time at OLPS, Shane played a key role in the implementation of new just cause rights for fast food workers and protections for app-based delivery workers, and negotiated several six and seven-figure settlements for classes of workers impacted by fair scheduling and paid sick leave violations. Prior to OLPS, Shane worked at California Rural Legal Assistance, where she began her legal career as a Skadden Fellow and went on to manage a hotline serving workers impacted by COVID-19. Shane holds a J.D. from Berkeley Law, and is licensed to practice law in California and New York.

Henna is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow at CDM. Henna is a graduate of Berkeley Law and obtained their undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley as well. Prior to joining CDM, Henna was a staff attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services, where Henna defended detained immigrants facing deportation. Henna is admitted to practice in California.

Dan Werner is a bilingual (Spanish/English) lawyer with 28 years’ experience advocating for workers and victims of egregious civil rights abuses. Dan began his career as an attorney representing farmworkers. He filed litigation, including several large class actions, against agricultural employers. His representation resulted in dozens of damages awards and settlements benefitting thousands of migrant workers in Florida and New York. He also represented immigrant clients in civil rights litigation, including a precedent-setting case the Third Circuit called “a paradigmatic case of racial profiling.” Dan went on to receive an Echoing Green Fellowship and co-founded the non-profit Workers’ Rights Law Center of New York. There, he continued to defend the labor and civil rights of exploited immigrant workers. Among his many ground-breaking cases, he successfully led the first-ever lawsuit for labor trafficking survivors under the TVPA. Through that case and others that followed, Dan developed important legal precedent and became a sought-after expert on civil litigation for trafficking survivors, publishing on the subject and lecturing in the United States and internationally. In 2008, Dan joined the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) where he litigated workers’ rights and civil rights cases. For example, he helped spearhead a seven-year labor trafficking lawsuit against a Mississippi-based shipyard operator on behalf of hundreds of pipefitters and welders recruited from India to help repair Gulf Coast oil rigs damaged during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The workers paid up to $25,000 for positions based on false promises of green cards. After a six-week jury trial, the first group of five plaintiffs was awarded $14 million in damages. Most recently, Dan pioneered and directed SPLC’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, which provided high-quality representation to immigrants detained in the Deep South. In addition to his work for clients, Dan has extensive experience with international consulting and policy advocacy.