Jeff Garson, a lawyer, psychotherapist and social activist, is a graduate of Johns Hopkins Universit, the University of Pennsylvania Law School (magna cum laude) and the Bryn Mawr College School of Social Work and Social Research. Upon graduation from law school in 1973, he clerked for the Honorable James Hunter, III, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In the 25 years that followed, Garson worked for a number of large, Philadelphia-based law firms, initially representing both plaintiffs and corporate defendant in antitrust and securities lawsuits, including several large, national class actions. Beginning in 1981, he re-oriented his practice, representing banks, equity investors and other creditors in corporate bankruptcies. In the last five years of his legal career, Garson represented nonprofit entities exclusively, ultimately joining the Shefa Fund, a public foundation, with senior executive and general counsel responsibilities. He then entered private legal practice specializing in litigation and commercial bankruptcy and, later in his career, nonprofit law. Re-tooling as a psychotherapist in 2000, he has, for the last 20 years, managed a private practice working with an economically and culturally diverse group of clients. On two occasions, from 2005-08 and 2013-17, he led business entities that, coordinating the work of diverse healers and coaches, offered clients the integrated life guidance, central to Radical Decency's approach. Garson is a co-founder and chair of the Decency Foundation whose mission is to bring Decency's 7 Values to all every area of living, with special emphasis on business and the workplace. >Legal Experience; significant cases >- A prime author in the re-organization of Mutual Benefit Life, an $18 billion insurance company; - Lead attorney in the New Era bankruptcy, a $500 million Ponzi scheme that ensnared 5,000 nonprofit entities, including the Red Cross, the United Way, the Boy Scouts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Salvation Army, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Duke. Communal/Political Experience >- Representative Board Service: Philadelphia's Public Interest Law Center; the American Jewish Committee; Jewish Family and Children's Service; Philadelphians Concerned About Housing; the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly; the Dream Line project. - Direct Service: Volunteer tutor; Big Brother; co-organizer and leader of service missions to Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala and, domestically, to refurbish a pocket park in West Philadelphia and to work at various Habitat for Humanity sites in Ohio. Healing/Personal Growth Experience >- Graduate: Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia, an intensive 3-year, experiential training; Imago's year-long training for couples' therapists; EMDr Level I training program. - 25-year involvement with the Essential Experience, a 31/2-day personal growth workshop offered 3 times a year in Philadelphia; graduate, Mankind Project's New Warriors' Training
