Our Staff


Laura Brown, Executive Director
Contact Laura at lbrown@firstshift.org

Susanna Barron, Attorney
Contact Susanna at sbarron@firstshift.org
Nikola Nable-Juris, Staff Attorney
Contact Nikola at nnablejuris@firstshift.org
Nikola Nable-Juris joined First Shift in 2020 as a Staff Attorney focusing on advocacy and education work about D.C.’s Paid Family Leave program. She has centered her career on furthering gender and reproductive justice, including working with pregnant and parenting youth in Juneau, Alaska, at domestic violence shelters in both Alaska and Virginia, and most recently completed the Georgetown’s Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship with the Initiative on Gender Justice and Opportunity. She worked with the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth from 2014 to 2019, leading legislative campaigns across the country to ban life-without-parole sentences for children under 18. She earned her J.D. from the University of Maryland and her B.A. from the University of Virginia and clerked for federal magistrate judges in D.C. and Maryland. As someone who, in the first decade of her legal career, had three children, recovered from brain surgery, and accompanied her grandfather through hospice during his last week of life, she intimately understands the importance of paid family leave.
Cassandra Cohen, Intake and Outreach Coordinator (AVODAH Corps Member)
Contact Cassandra at ccohen@firstshift.org
Cassie will be joining the First Shift team as the Avodah Corps member for 2020-2021. She graduated this past May from Emory University where she studied Psychology and Sociology. She has always been interested in working in social justice and specifically in women’s health & women’s rights. Over the past few years, she has worked as a youth educator as well as volunteering with Jewish Women’s International (JWI) to lead workshops about “safe smart dating” and abusive relationships on college campuses. This year she will be creating and presenting “Know Your Rights” Presentations, conducting client intake interviews, launching the client story telling project among other responsibilities.