The FAF Welcomes Two New Board Members

Elizabeth Askren (YL ’14)

Elizabeth Askren graduated in piano and conducting from the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Conducting Institute of Bard in the United States, and the Schola Cantorum and the Ecole Normale de Musique in France.

Her musical mentors include conductors Marin Alsop and Lorin Maazel, and pianists Byron Janis and Sergio Perticaroli. Elizabeth Askren has built a vibrant career by empowering musicians around the world, whether from the podium as a conductor, as an educator, as a creator, and as a speaker on issues of leadership, diversity and more.

She performs regularly with leading opera houses and orchestras in North America and Europe. The 2022-23 season includes guest conducting at The Dallas Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Opéra de Dijon, and Paris Opera Academy.

As a teacher at the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute and conducting teacher at the Paris Opera Academy, she is frequently invited for masterclasses, international juries, and to speak on such topics as nonprofit leadership, the importance of classical music and cultural entrepreneurship, which led her to give a TEDx
talk “Why Classical Music is the Wave of the Future”.

Deeply committed to education, Elizabeth Askren is the Founder and since 2017 Artistic Director of TOA – Transylvanian Opera Academy, Romania’s first opera studio. TOA offers a 360° approach to education, taking a holistic approach to helping its young artists to develop as humans as well as musicians, all
while giving back to their communities.

Geoffrey Chepiga (YL ’19)

A partner in the Litigation Department and co-deputy chair of the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group at Paul Weiss, Geoffrey Chepiga represents clients in a variety of litigation and regulatory matters, including securities fraud cases, mergers and acquisitions litigation and DOJ and SEC investigations.

Geoff has been recognized by The Legal 500 US as a Leading Lawyer in the M&A Litigation: Defense category and a Recommended Lawyer in the Securities Litigation: Defense category. Geoff was also named to the 2022 Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Litigators in America” and named a 2023 Benchmark
Litigation “Litigation Star.”

Geoff also maintains a significant pro bono practice, a highlight of which is his representation, as co-counsel with the America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), of thousands of children and parents who were forcibly torn from each other under the Trump administration’s illegal practice of separating families at the southern border. The matter, filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona, followed a nationwide injunction entered in June 2018 blocking family separations, also as a result of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. In addition, Geoff also has been representing a class of individuals with mental disabilities residing in so-called homes in New York City. The class sued the state of New York, claiming that these homes violated the “integration mandate” of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). After ten years of litigation, the parties reached a landmark settlement to end the state’s decades-long discrimination.

Geoff is co-chair of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Pro Bono Advisory Council (PBAC). He also serves on the board of Trustees of the Quogue Library. He is the co-author of “Ownership or Use? Civilian Property Interests in International Humanitarian Law,” which appeared in the 49th volume of Harvard International Law Journal in 2008.

He clerked for the Hon. Dennis Jacobs, U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit and the Hon. Naomi Reice Buchwald, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, M.Phil from the University of Cambridge and B.A. from Yale University, cum laude.