Christopher P. Chapman—Board Chair

President and Chief Executive Officer, AccessLex Institute

Christopher Chapman

Chris Chapman joined the Helix Board in 2021. He has served as president and chief executive officer of AccessLex Institute since January 2008 and joined its Board of Directors in 2012.

Immediately prior to joining AccessLex, Chris was the president and chief executive officer of ALL Student Loan, a California-based nonprofit student loan provider, from 2001 to 2007. Earlier, he served as vice president of Student Loan Funding Resources, a student loan originator and secondary market, and as director of its joint venture loan servicing company. From 1999–2000, Chris practiced law as a senior attorney with Calfee, Halter & Griswold, LLP, working in its corporate, public finance and higher education practice areas. His early career was spent in the policy arena, including acting as special assistant and policy counsel for two members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Chris has served on numerous nonprofit boards, committees and task forces throughout his career, and regularly presents on matters relating to the financing of higher education, the state of legal education, and public policy matters.

Chris earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Xavier University, his post-baccalaureate Certificate in finance and accounting from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, and his Juris Doctor from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Chris is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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Maureen A. O’Rourke—Board Vice Chair

Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Boston University

Maureen A. O'Rourke

Maureen A. O’Rourke joined the Helix Board in 2021. She also has served on the AccessLex Institute Board since 2015 and is the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Boston University. O’Rourke is a member of the faculty of Boston University School of Law and served there as Interim Dean from 2004-06 then Dean until 2018. Prior to that she worked at IBM Corporation, where she handled a variety of issues surrounding software licensing. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and earned her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Marist College.

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She served on the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section on Legal Education including as Chair and is a past-Chair of the AALS Section on the Law School Dean and the Section on Computers and the Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and a member of the Board of Trustees of Marist College. O’Rourke is a co-author of one of the leading copyright casebooks in the US, Copyright in a Global Information Economy (Wolters Kluwer), and has written extensively on the intersection of intellectual property law with other fields, particularly contract law. She is also a recipient of the Metcalf Award, Boston University’s highest teaching honor.

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W.H. (Joe) Knight, Jr.—Board Secretary/Treasurer

Former Distinguished Academic in Residence at Seattle University

W.H. Knight Jr.

W.H. (Joe) Knight, Jr., joined the Helix Board in 2021. He served as a member of the AccessLex Institute Board of Directors from 2009 until April 2022. He served as Distinguished Academic in Residence at Seattle University until retiring in early 2022. Knight has been actively involved in legal education and governance matters throughout his career. He has previously served as a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Law School Admissions Council and of The Association of American Law Schools.

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Knight served as Dean of the University of Washington Law School and before that, as Vice Provost of the University of Iowa. He is a member of the American Law Institute and both the American and National Bar Associations. During his career, Knight has also taught commercial law and related courses at Chapman University, Duke, Washington (St. Louis) and Wake Forest Universities. He currently consults with businesses and higher education institutions, as well as serves as lead director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Board of Directors.

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Yousef Awad

Chief Executive Officer, Integrant, Inc.

Yousef Awad

Yousef Awad joined the Helix Board in January 2022. He is the CEO of Integrant, Inc., a San Diego headquartered software development company with development centers in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt. As CEO, Yousef has had the unique opportunity to build a company that reflects his personal and professional values and prioritizes relationship building and predictability in an industry that historically lacks both. To date, Integrant has 250+ employees, revenue over $11M, and delivered over 1,200 successful applications. However, Yousef’s proudest accomplishments come from an industry leading 10-year average customer retention and 5-year average employee retention.

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Prior to starting Integrant in 1992, Yousef spent much of his career on the technical side of software development. As a DB2 DBA and leading expert in rule-based algorithms for database engines, he was a frequent speaker at conferences around the country. This expertise led him to architecting several large data warehouses and managing several mid-size to large projects. All this experience solidified and fueled his vision to start Integrant.

Yousef holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems, is bilingual in Arabic and English, and was a long-time Vistage member in San Diego, CA. His in-progress passion project is building a coding academy for high school students, to introduce computer science skills at an early age to help the new generation reach their goals.

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Carla Pratt

Ada Lois Sipuel Chair in Civil Rights, Race and Justice in Law at Oklahoma University School of Law

Carla Pratt

Carla Pratt joined the Helix Board in April 2022. She was appointed the Ada Lois Sipuel Chair in Civil Rights, Race and Justice in Law at Oklahoma University School of Law in June 2022.

Prior to joining Oklahoma University, Pratt served as Dean at Washburn Law from 2018 to June 2022 and as Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at Penn State Dickinson Law where she was the Nancy J. LaMont Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law. Professor Pratt has taught courses in Constitutional Law, Federal Indian Law, Education Law and Race and American Law. While at Penn State Dickinson Law, Professor Pratt received the law school's Philip J. McConnaughay award for outstanding achievement in diversity related work.

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From 2012 to 2018, Professor Pratt also served as an Associate Justice for the Supreme Court of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in Fort Yates, North Dakota. In this capacity she heard appeals involving tribal members and those doing business with tribal members in cases relating primarily to tribal criminal law, family law, business law and constitutional law.

Professor Pratt engages in scholarship examining racial diversity in law school and the legal profession. She is co-author of the book, The End of the Pipeline: A Journey of Recognition for African Americans Entering the Legal Profession, which reports the findings of a qualitative study of African American attorneys and challenges the assumption that blacks entering the profession today have a post-racial colorblind journey. In her most recent research project, Professor Pratt partnered with Professor Eboni Nelson and Dr. Ronald Pitner at the University of South Carolina. The resulting article in the Iowa Law Review, "Assessing the Viability of Race-Neutral Alternatives in Law School Admissions," explores the potential for race-neutral law school admissions. The findings from the study aim to enhance law schools' understanding of race-neutral admissions factors that may or may not contribute to their ability to assemble a racially diverse student body and give law schools the tools to experiment with trying to yield a racially diverse class without asking applicants about their race.

Prior to joining the law faculty at Penn State Dickinson Law, Professor Pratt engaged in private practice as a commercial litigator with the law firm of Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP in Philadelphia and served as a Deputy Attorney General in New Jersey.

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